NPM debug and chalk packages compromised

As an outsider to the npm ecosystem, reading this list of packages is astonishing. Why do js people import someone else's npm module for every little trivial thing?

I can provide you with some missing background as I was a prior full time JavaScript/TypeScript developer for 15 years.

Most people writing JavaScript code for employment cannot really program. It is not a result of intellectual impairment, but appears to be more a training and cultural deficit in the work force. The result is extreme anxiety at the mere idea of writing original code, even when trivial in size and scope. The responses vary but often take the form of reused cliches of which some don't even directly apply.

What's weird about this is that it is mostly limited to the employed workforce. Developers who are self-taught or spend as much time writing personal code on side projects don't have this anxiety. This is weird because the resulting hobby projects tend to be substantially more durable than products funded by employment that are otherwise better tested by paid QA staff.

As a proof ask any JavaScript team at your employment to build their next project without a large framework and just observe how they respond both verbally and non-verbally.

> The responses vary but often take the form of reused cliches of which some don't even directly apply.

"It has been tested by a 1000 people before me"

"What if there is an upstream optimisation?"

"I'm just here to focus on Business Problems™"

"It reduces cognitive load"

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Whilst I think you are exaggerating, I do recognise this phenomenon. For me, it was during the pandemic when I had to train / support a lot of bootcamp grads and new entrants to the career. They were anxious to perform in their new career and interpreted that as shipping tickets as fast as possible.

These developers were not dumb but they had... like, no drive at all to engage with problems. Most programmers should enjoy problems, not develop a kind of bad feeling behind the eyes, or a tightness in their chest. But for these folks, a problem was a threat, of a bad status update at their daily Scrum.

Dependencies are a socially condoned shortcut to that. You can use a library and look like a sensible and pragmatic engineer. When everyone around you appears to accept this as the norm, it's too easy to just go with the flow.

I think it is a change in the psychological demographic too. This will sound fanciful. But tech used to select for very independent, stubborn, disagreeable people. Now, agreeableness is king. And what is more agreeable than using dependencies?