Features are wonderful. When Node.js adds a new API, we can instantly do more with it. Wouldn’t a larger standard library be more useful for developers? Who could possibly object to Node.js getting better? And who, even more strangely, would actually remove APIs, making Node.js objectively worse? Turns out, lots of people…
A recent proposal to get HTTP proxy environment variable support into Node.js, https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/8381, got a generally hesitant response from Node.js maintainers, and generally enthusiastic response from Node.js users.
What’s going on here? Why the disconnect? Is this an ideological stance?
No, for those who support a small core, its a matter of pragmatism. What is happening is that the instantaneous delight of new APIs in Node.js fades with time, even as the problems of maintaining those APIs grows. The longer you work with Node.js core, supporting, bug fixing, and documenting the existing APIs, the more you wish that Node.js had been more conservative in accepting new APIs in the past, and that those APIs had been implemented as npm modules that could be independently maintained and versioned.
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