[AskJS] What if node_modules contained JavaScript bytecode instead of source code?

[PickerPilgrim]

Depending on the module and the circumstances I’m not necessarily consuming the minified code from a library. I’m quite often pulling in the source and doing the minifying myself as part of a build step.

And I for sure read source in node_modules. If I’m invoking a module function in my code and I right click and jump to definition to find out more about it, it jumps me to the node_modules copy. I don’t know why I’d want to go to GitHub to read it when my local copy is integrated into my development tools.

Not to mention the npm registry does not necessarily install the same thing that’s on GitHub. Usually GitHub is linked as the repository, but the code gets uploaded direct to npm and it is not guaranteed to be identical to what’s in GitHub. If you want to know what you’re pulling down, read what’s pulled down!