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Deep Thoughts

Rising community at tomorrow's horizon

A close-up of a replica of Rodin's "The Thinker" statue, depicting a contemplative man resting his chin on his hand.
• 3 min read • 600 words
Felix Schneider
Felix Schneider
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Here I am. Thoughtfully sitting like the French sculptor Auguste Rodin imagined “The Thinker” (Le Penseur) in the late 19th century. Thinking about how to write a blog post which should express deepest gratitude, but unable to find the right words to do so.

Projects come and go. They develop; they move on. Sometimes they finish, but often they don’t - especially personal or side projects. But they rarely evolve at light speed. They rarely explode. Nuke the entire ecosystem with their majesty. Rise like a superhuman. Unite. Shine. And inspire. Bring together what was thought far apart. Combining thoughts of hundreds through vision. Making the impossible possible. Sometimes I feel like I should have become a poet. Until I publish my content… and I realize that tools like npmx-devnpmx are the ink for my digital poetry.

Poetry or not aside: I recently discovered a newly forming community of talented people, connected by the vision of creating a fast and modern browser for the npm registry. What sounds simple on paper - or should I say in the README.md - got features added more quickly than it takes Nutella to sell 1,000 jars of their hazelnut cocoa spread; worldwide — goes without saying. In the early days - before people needed vacation (if you know you know), the young project’s main branch struggled to keep up with all the good stuff called “commits” in our world that came around every 37 minutes, 24/7. I wouldn’t have been amazed if GitHub had spun up a dedicated Azure data centre just for our commitment.

Now what actually is npmx? For those just discovering it, npmx is a lightning-fast, modern browser for the npm registry, reimagining how developers explore and discover packages. It doesn’t host the package itself, it’s just a way to interact with all the awesome npm packages you already love. The community plays a very important role, and we define the features we want to have ourselves. The project started with Daniel Roe asking people on Bluesky for what they wished npmjs.org had, without explaining the reason for his question. This way, a handful of useful features for maintainers and consumers like managing, comparing or even liking packages made their way from ideas to reality. It’s really impressive what people can build together when they have a common belief, unbounded by possibilities, formed by imagination.

While many faces were familiar, the sheer number of developers, designers, security and a11y experts, organisers, sponsors and all other professionals that I didn’t even know existed before was just mind-blowing. ¡Ay! ¡Estoy abrumado! I am definitely proud of what we have already achieved. And I am looking forward to what we will achieve. As developers, but much more as a community. I am here to stay!

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