Facebook’s open source JavaScript package manager is gathering steam, but don’t count out NPM
Mere months since it was open-sourced by Facebook , Yarn has NPM on the run. The upstart JavaScript package manager has gained a quick foothold in the Node.js community, particularly among users of the React JavaScript UI library .
Known for faster installation, Yarn gives developers an improved ability to manage code dependencies in their Node.js projects, proponents say. It features a deterministic install algorithm and a lockfile capability that lists exact version numbers of all project dependencies. In this way, Yarn enables installation of thousands of third-party packages from the internet while ensuring code is executed the same on every system.
“Say good-bye to ‘but it works on my machine’ bugs,’ wrote Gergely Nemeth, CEO of Node.js consultant RisingStack, in a recent blog post comparing the merits of Yarn vs. NPM.
Yarn is beginning to gain traction, says Dan Shaw, co-founder of Node services provider NodeSource.
“We’re seeing about a quarter of NodeSource customers beginning to explore and adopt Yarn, and there’s a very strong correlation of that usage with React.js platform usage,” Shaw says.
Officials at both the Node.js Foundation and NodeSource see Yarn as a good option for front-end Web development.
