Image via Shitty Watercolour

Facebook announced Wednesday the availability of Yarn, a new JavaScript package dependency manager.

Created in collaboration with Google, Exponent and Tilde, Yarn came about in part due to issues of scale with the npm package manager. However, Yarn does still use the npm registry, so it’s best considered a drop-in replacement for npm’s existing client.

It’s fair to say it has proven somewhat popular:

You can get up to speed by taking a look over Facebook’s announcement post.

Done? Ok. Here are several early reaction posts, initial thoughts, observations and tidbits on what people think about Yarn, and what to expect from it.

The Announcement

Facebook partners with Google, others to launch a new JavaScript package manager

Frederic Lardinois of TechCrunch sums up the announcement, talking to software engineers from Facebook on how Yarn came about.

“instead of hacking around npm’s limitations, Facebook decided to rewrite it from scratch.”

How NPM Responded

Hello, Yarn!

It didn’t take long for npm to respond to Yarn’s being.

npm CEO Isaac Z. Schlueter penned a quick post acknowledging the Yarn announcement, putting to rest any potential concern that its introduction will fork the community, and praising it for contributing to the open source world.

“Sharing the fruits of their labor will allow ideas and bugfixes to flow back and forth between npm’s official client and all the others. Everyone benefits as a result”.

It’s fast:

Some Early Impressions

Yarn: A new program for installing JavaScript dependencies

James Ide shares some early thoughts on Yarn.

“many individuals and teams will choose to use Yarn because it’s so much faster than npm and solves many familiar problems”

Why You Should Be Excited

Why I’m Working on Yarn

Yehuda Katz has spent the last month or so working on the Yarn project ahead of its public launch.

Here he outlines several reasons as to why he’s excited to be using the new package manager. Katz’s outlines how scalability, a community focus and early collaboration are all good signs.

“I believe in the core technical values of the project”

More Initial Thoughts

Yarn: Yet Another…Package Manager

Thorsten Frommen shares his thoughts on the announcement.

“The news quickly gave the web-tech world a good shaking”

Image via Shitty Watercolour

Early Tests

Testing Yarn, a fast npm for JavaScript

Ahmed runs a few quick tests to see just how fast Yarn is.

Spoilers: It’s quick.

Some More Early Impressions

Thoughts on Yarn

“[Yarn] is a better npm client but its release suggests that change may be coming to JavaScript package management with issues of security and centralisation up for debate.”

George Ornbo on Yarn.

Should You Use It?

From NPM to Yarn; Should I go for it or not ?

Shuvo Habib asks the question, why use Yarn when we have npm?

How Straightforward Is It?

Replacing npm with Yarn

A few things Bugsnag noticed after switching from npm to Yarn.

“The migration process was extremely simple.”

Some Basics

5 things you can do with Yarn

Prosper Otemuyiwa runs down five things you can do with Yarn, including working offline, locking package versions automatically and more.

A Little Advice

Avoid Yarn for packages for now and fully enjoy its benefits for application development

Some cautionary advice from Stephan Bönnemann.

“When using it for packages, that are meant to be consumed by other packages and applications, things might not work as expected”

Handy Tips

NPM vs Yarn Cheat Sheet

Gant Laborde provides a quick rundown of the Yarn commands you need to know, including a collection of commands Yarn has which npm does not.

He promises to keep this post updated as Yarn grows, so maybe consider bookmarking this one.

How To Get Started

Meet Yarn: Your New Package Manager

Ready to give it a go?

Jeffrey Way shows how you can switch to Yarn in this quick three-minute video.

“If you’re used to brewing a cup of coffee while npm installs, well — that’s no longer a thing!”

So, the above are just a few of the initial links worth taking a look over.

You can take find the Yarn repo here, and Facebook has shared some comparison data between Yarn and npm performance here.

Thanks to Shitty Watercolour for permission to use his cute kitty images in this article — go take a look at his stuff. Great work.

….and finally. 😉