Re: Bug#802595: ITP: node-defined -- return the first argument that is `!== undefined`

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

Steve McIntyre wrote:
> Ross Gammon wrote:
> >* Package name    : node-defined
> >   Version         : 1.0.0
> >   Upstream Author : James Halliday <mail@substack.net> 
> >(http://substack.net)
> >* URL             : https://github.com/substack/defined
> >* License         : Expat
> >   Programming Lang: JavaScript
> >   Description     : return the first argument that is `!== undefined`
> >
> >  Most of the time when you chain together ||s, you actually just want the
> >  first item that is not undefined, not the first non-falsy item.
> >  .
> >  This module is like the defined-or (//) operator in perl 5.10+.
> >  .
> >  Node.js is an event-based server-side JavaScript engine.
> >
> >This package is required for tape 
> >(https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=798278) and will be 
> >maintained within the Debian Javascript Team.
> 
> YA tiny Javascript "library" containing 3 lines of utterly trivial
> code. :-(
> 
> I appreciate you're just following through a dependency chain from
> upstream for tape, but please push back on upstream and ask them why
> they're doing this kind of ridiculous split-up. Code re-use in general
> is a good plan, but not at the level of every trivial helper function
> being split out into its own library!

"why" is because node (and other modern languages) make it easy to
create a package for any particular bit of reusable code.  That Debian
fails to support that is Debian's problem, not upstream's.

- Josh Triplett