When I joined LinkedIn 4 years ago, the JavaScript infrastructure was a mess. We had a tool called `just` that integrated with the existing Java infrastructure, including Node version and dependency management, but it was a bit of a hack that predictably became a core part of the foundation.
Worse, onboarding took longer than it needed to, because every new hire had to learn the alternate "just" universe. I can't begin to count how much time was wasted because people subconsciously fell back to the "normal" npm or Yarn commands they were used to, mysteriously putting their project into a bad state, costing them and support engineers valuable time.
We've been able to replace that legacy infrastructure with Volta and Yarn, and working on JavaScript projects finally feels like a first class citizen.
What I appreciate about Volta is two things:
1. It treats the _entire_ toolchain (including npm or Yarn) as important, not just the Node version.
2. It's fast. Like, really fast. Tools like nvm never previously felt slow to me, but now that I've used Volta for the better part of a year, going back feels like they're running in molasses.
Worse, onboarding took longer than it needed to, because every new hire had to learn the alternate "just" universe. I can't begin to count how much time was wasted because people subconsciously fell back to the "normal" npm or Yarn commands they were used to, mysteriously putting their project into a bad state, costing them and support engineers valuable time.
We've been able to replace that legacy infrastructure with Volta and Yarn, and working on JavaScript projects finally feels like a first class citizen.
What I appreciate about Volta is two things:
1. It treats the _entire_ toolchain (including npm or Yarn) as important, not just the Node version.
2. It's fast. Like, really fast. Tools like nvm never previously felt slow to me, but now that I've used Volta for the better part of a year, going back feels like they're running in molasses.