Weird conventions, like including index.js by default. It does not play nicely with coffeescript's default behavior of including a module. The modules being a hack built into the language, I have to read library docs and follow external decisions (versus a holistic approach built by the language maintainer). Introducing a variable to contain a library is unconventional and potentially limiting (specifically for meta programming).
Like I said, I didn't spend much time with them. They are a solution. NPM feels like the old rails gems and is certainly better than most package managers. Requiring external libraries and files specifically is a hack and feels as such. I would gladly take any of the languages inclusion techniques I listed above over node's.
Edit: I am not trying to put down the hard work that went into creating the system. JavaScript does not support modules natively, so adding support is a momentous accomplishment. The unfortunate reality is that it will always be a limited solution. JavaScript modules (in any form) are going to be inferior to languages that natively support such a basic part of programming.
Like I said, I didn't spend much time with them. They are a solution. NPM feels like the old rails gems and is certainly better than most package managers. Requiring external libraries and files specifically is a hack and feels as such. I would gladly take any of the languages inclusion techniques I listed above over node's.
Edit: I am not trying to put down the hard work that went into creating the system. JavaScript does not support modules natively, so adding support is a momentous accomplishment. The unfortunate reality is that it will always be a limited solution. JavaScript modules (in any form) are going to be inferior to languages that natively support such a basic part of programming.