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

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 02:14:46PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> Josh Triplett wrote:
> >Steve McIntyre wrote:
> >> 
> >> 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.
> 
> In the general case I might agree, but have you actually looked at
> some of these cases? It's ridiculous in any language to have a
> separate library for a single function as trivial as:
> 
>     for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
>         if (arguments[i] !== undefined) return arguments[i];
>     }
> 
> Split it out into a separate helper function in the surrounding code?
> Sure. Add it to your own library with lots of other little helpers?
> Yes, by all means if you're using it a lot. But a separate library
> with its own docs and test suite and everything? No, that's a joke.

In a system where the packaging metadata takes up very little more than
those lines, I hardly see the problem.  We are not the node community;
we don't determine or dictate its norms.

- Josh Triplett