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Nurbol Alpysbayev
Nurbol Alpysbayev

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What is your favorite way to find the hottest packages?

Hi there!

Nowadays one of the main skills of a developer is to find right library/package/tool. Otherwise, months or even years of work can be wasted.

Of course, there are some most obvious ways to find popular/trending stuff:

  • Google (searching subjects you are interested in)
  • Github (trending, observing what your followees like)
  • Twitter (you should subscribe to industry activists)

However that's well known things. But there have to be other approaches. For instance, there is cool Chrome extension I found few months ago:

But maybe there is more?
How do you find the right tools for your work?

Top comments (7)

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tux0r profile image
tux0r • Edited

Nowadays one of the main skills of a developer is to find right library/package/tool.

That's the difference between developers and "coders": Developers write and publish libraries/packages/tools. "Coders" glue them together and consider that to be "creative work".

So, to come back to your question: I don't find "hot packages". I write them. :-)

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anurbol profile image
Nurbol Alpysbayev • Edited

Thanks for your opinion! However I'd argue with that. I write libraries myself, and still my need for searching good underlying libs is higher than ever. Also, I see guys who write very popular libraries still use a lot of dependencies sometimes, and that's sometimes inevitable, especially for relatively high-level packages.

But I see, that you are a C guy. So you might like to write zero-dependency libs, which is respectable, but not the only case :-)

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tux0r profile image
tux0r

I see guys who write very popular libraries still use a lot of dependencies sometimes

Which can easily turn into dependency hell which should at least let you have a second thought before blindly using it. I know that it "saves time" - but in 2018, we have people who use multi-GB Docker containers to deploy a three-megabyte "application". Enjoy using mobile networks for that, e.g. in an emergency... :-)

But I see, that you are C guy.

I am also a Delphi, Lisp/Racket, FASM, C++, C#, ... guy. But yes, I like to write and use libraries with as few external dependencies as possible.

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anurbol profile image
Nurbol Alpysbayev • Edited

Agree. OS-size-like Docker containers are convenient for CI & deploy though. But that's a matter of preference/available resources/etc.

P.S. That languages list is impressive, to say the least!

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anurbol profile image
Nurbol Alpysbayev • Edited

BTW the really interesting question is (why I made OP actually): when you start writing new lib, don't you search for already existing ones, so that you would not invent a wheel?

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tux0r profile image
tux0r

I do. And there's rarely one that fully fits what I would prefer. Yes, I am willing to sacrifice some of my wishes - but sometimes, writing everything on my own is notably easier than working around the shortcomings of existing solutions.

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anurbol profile image
Nurbol Alpysbayev • Edited

Thank you for sharing your experience, I love to hear that there are experienced developers that do what I do sometimes as well.