I have never been a fan of NPM, specifically the 98K files installs on my machine that now takes forever to move or delete. The fact that I have references to projects I have never heard of with names that sound like drug pushers at the seedy corners of seedy qwikkie marts.
Like really? I have a folder called AB in my node_modules? What the heck is that?
Then, of course, are the security concerns. Any of these libraries is a way in to your computer, which is probably running with admin rights and thatyou give free reign to. Yikes.
So, I've tried, over the years, to download what I need and reference it directly or merge using Gulp. It's worked well enough. I do get lazy sometimes and just go down the npm route, sucks I know.
LibMan is a tool from MS that I should start using. To be fair, if the library you want to use is using NPM to build itself, I think you're still fucked.
OK - reason for the post.
I have a project, it's easily 9 years old. It hums along. Legacy stuff that works and no need to mess with it. Every once in a while an ask will come in - "Can we do x to y?" Why yes, easy enough.
Today, I fot one of those. Easy enough, Change 1 line of SQL, add a button to a page with an Angularjs ng-click, add (copy) the function and done.
NO.
Gulp says I have a primordial problem. Which sound serious. But, a project that has been running smoothly, has been built and redeployed (using classic xcopy via FTP for the win) is now going to have a js problem from some library that has an issue with primordials? That's bullshit. I just wanted to redeploy. I cannot update this 10 year old to new and shiny libraries - there's no time for that.
So, that's the rant. I have to figure this crap out.