Ask HN: How do you maintain JavaScript web apps?

  • I've always tried to use monorepos to avoid different repos getting out of date and to avoid managing which versions work with which versions.

    Updating dependencies is harder with a monorepo but for that I've tried to have as many unit and e2e tests as possible to try and make it a case of bump the version and assume no test failures means it worked (of course I do manual testing but if the tests worked it's likely that any problems will be small).

  • I’m curious about this too but there’s really only a few options. Npm update, etc, is the riskiest thing I do at this point, I’m extremely fed up with the state of packages and cross-compatibility.

    I merely cross my fingers, if something fails, force peer-legacy install and hope for the best etc.

    The only other options are:

    - Don’t update, and when you do, update to an already old version not the latest

    - Carefully scrutinize released updates and evaluate potential for breakages

    I say this because I don’t primarily see any other options but hope we can get some more insight in the comments!

  • Only do it if it brings business value. Start thinking that way.