A single Node of failure

The real failure appears to be one of "language culture". In most languages, you search for some way to achieve e.g. a left-pad function, you find the code on a Forum or Wiki page and you copy that to your local library of utility stuff, if not inlining it altogether.

With node.js, all you get is the name of the library to include, and I can only assume that people don't even look at the code they're including that way, most of the time.
When I search for something like that, I incorporate the principles involved directly into the code I'm working with instead of calling out. I like to think that this improves my understanding of what the hell I am doing. That opportunity is lost if you don't even look at the stuff.