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The tragedy of running an old Node project

(abdisalan.com)
272 points abdisalan | 4 comments | 18 Nov 24 18:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mvkel ◴[18 Nov 24 19:03 UTC] No.42175730[source]▶
> time to run it after not touching it for 4 years

> Two hours of my life gone...

Two hours of work after 4 years sounds ... perfectly acceptable?

And it would have run perfectly right away if the node version was specified, so a good learning, too

This feels like making a mountain out of a mole hill

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1. korkybuchek ◴[18 Nov 24 19:12 UTC] No.42175818[source]▶
> Two hours of work after 4 years sounds ... perfectly acceptable?

Does it, though? Node wasn't exactly new 4 years ago, and plenty of other languages would offer a better experience for even older code -- Java, C, C++ to name a few.

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2. mvkel ◴[19 Nov 24 06:42 UTC] No.42180614[source]▶
Define "better experience."

1.5 hours to get running again?

1?

In exchange for needing to run C? How many hours would it take to build a Node app equivalent in C, I wonder.

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3. regularfry ◴[19 Nov 24 08:49 UTC] No.42181275[source]▶
0 would be fine. I'd take 0. This could all have been avoided if the interpreter version had been recorded by default somewhere. That's all this needed.
4. demosthanos ◴[19 Nov 24 13:52 UTC] No.42183420[source]▶
> Java

50% of Java developers are still regularly working in Java 8 [0], which is the same solution that the author could have arrived at immediately—when starting up an old project after 4 years, use the same version you ran last time, don't try to update before you even have the thing running.

> C, C++

Not my experience, but maybe it depends on your operating system and distro? In my experience sorting through the C libs and versions that you need to install on your system to build a new project can easily take a few hours.

[0] https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2023/java/