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Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja: Code repositories?

 
Greenhorn
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Thanks for writing the book & good luck with it.

I've not used JavaScript, but recently found ConvNetJS, a neural network library & might want to learn JS now.

This question is about packages.  With Perl I've used CPAN; Python has PyPi.  Where can we find good collections of JavaScript packages?

How to identify the good-better-best quality packages in a JS repository, eg, test coverage, documentation, user ratings, popularity, authors with good reputations?

What are some criteria that you use to decide whether to use an existing package, or write your own code?
 
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Good grief, there are millions spread all over the web. Just do a search for "jQuery plugins" and you'll get over 7.3 million results. And that's just a tiny, targeted slice.

If you are looking for something more formal, check out bower packages. Bower is a repository registry and dependency tool that identifies JavaScript packages loaded into github.
 
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Hi,

You should checkout npm, by far the biggest repository for javascript packages.

Josip
 
C Poda
Greenhorn
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Thanks, npm looks very valuable.

Any response to my other questions in the original post, on how to choose which packages to evalluate from the dozens available for a specific use?  and how you, the experts, decide to 'make vs buy'?

Thanks.
 
Josip Maras
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These are my rules of thumb: look at the package's stats (e.g. https://www.npmjs.com/package/jquery), more downloads it has, the better; open the package's git repository, see is the package actively maintained, look at the number of stars and watchers. Take a look at the package source code, code quality, availability of tests, etc. Using these criteria I narrow it down, and then if necessary I try to remaining packages and see which one fits better.

 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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