the indicator of popularity
I wanted to share a link to a JS module github-star which can semi-automatically „star“ on GitHub the dependencies of your software found in package.json.
However I will write about other things as well. After all there are software repositories beside GitHub, like GitLab, BitBucket, etc. Therefore dependencies should be „starred“ there as well, but I haven’t found a module like this yet.
Another option is to use stars on the npm itself, since we download from it anyway. However this feature is kinda hidden there and it is not clear, whether npm search engines like libraries.io use it at all.
This thought process has slowly led me to understand that stars are just an indicator of popularity, and an imperfect one. There is something much more precise: the number of downloads from npm. It sits in the same place where the modules are, it works automatically, and it is visible to everyone. Also when people stop using a module its monthly downloads dwindle, while stars remain.
Or do you think that stars are better anyway?