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Comment by yakshaving_jgt | Hacker News Reader

Please read my other comments in the thread before engaging further. I have already explained several times that using a tool is not the same as implementing a tool.

I also have never said that no developer tools are implemented in JavaScript.

If you like, feel free to tell me what proportion (as a percentage) of web developers in the world are actively contributing to the JavaScript projects you listed.

Not using.

Actually making.

> you don't have to write npm before you can use npm...

That is exactly my point.

Given that you don’t have to write npm before you can use it, it shouldn’t matter to you what language it is implemented in.

I feel someone is going to have to take over from me at this point, because I’m not sure how else to explain this very simple, uncontroversial point.

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> Not using.

> Actually making.

I've read all your comments in this thread and I've come to the conclusion that your opinion of a "web developer" is about a decade out of date.

Why do you say that?

You're making some kind of distinction of a web developer just being someone who splices designs in Dreamweaver or something.

It's not.

Every web developer or frontend engineer I've ever worked with in the last decade has been a software engineer in every sense of the word. Focusing on web based applications or architecture is just what they have chosen or fallen in to.

I don’t know where you’re getting any of that. If you really had read all my comments, you may have caught the bit where I said:

> This isn’t a dig at web developers either (like I said, I am one)

Who exactly do you think is making tooling like npm, webpack, babel..? It's web developers, dog-fooding their own tools. Sure, many more will use than make, but that's true of EVERY tool that is made.

Do you think the majority of people using make contribute to writing make?

> Who exactly do you think is making tooling like npm, webpack, babel..?

Almost 0% of web developers.

As I have said. Repeatedly.

For every one person building one of these tools, there’s at least 100 developers using it, not actually contributing to it.

Not a difficult concept to grasp.

> Sure, many more will use than make, but that's true of EVERY tool that is made.

Yes. I know. Obviously

> Do you think the majority of people using make contribute to writing make?

Obviously not. And this further proves my point. JavaScript developers can use Make to build their JavaScript. It doesn’t matter what language Make is implemented in.

Are you following yet?

I write tools. I choose to write in the platform(s) of MY choice. Are YOU following yet?

TFA chose to write a tool in THEIR platform of choice. If you want something different, write it your fucking self.

Aside: every open-source project I've worked on that uses make as it's primary script/build pipeline interface doesn't work correctly on mac, windows or many linux environments.

npm happens to run on windows, linux and mac with minimal problems.

Also, the tools in TFA are something someone spent time on creating, that serves a purpose that works within the tooling that most of the people that would use the tool already use... and all you've done is poop on that because it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what the "right" language/platform is.

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