Sacha Chua - tag - random https://sachachua.com/blog/tag/random/feed/index.xml Emacs, sketches, and life Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:46:21 GMT en-US daily 1 11ty Listing random npmjs.com packages updated today https://sachachua.com/blog/2016/02/listing-random-npmjs-com-packages-updated-today/ Sun, 21 Feb 2016 02:19:00 GMT geek https://sachachua.com/blog/?p=28625 I was looking for a way to randomly learn about packages hosted at npmjs.com so that I can come across libraries I might not have thought of searching for. The registry data is available at https://registry.npmjs.org/, and there's a public CouchDB mirror at https://skimdb.npmjs.com/registry . Someday, when I know more about CouchDB, I might be able to query it and do other things.

In the meantime, this Github issue pointed me to a view of all packages modified today, which is a good-enough proxy for what I'm interested in.

Here's an AngularJS app that displays the list and highlights a random item.

Screenshot_2016-02-20_21-09-21

<html ng-app="myApp">
  <head>
    <script type="text/javascript"
      src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/angular.js/1.5.0/angular.min.js"></script>
    <script>
     // https://registry.npmjs.org/-/all/static/today.json
     // from https://github.com/npm/npm-registry-couchapp/issues/242
     var app = angular.module('myApp', []);
     app.controller('npmTodayCtrl', function($scope, $http) {
       $scope.randomize = function() {
         $scope.random = $scope.packages[Math.floor(Math.random() * $scope.packages.length)];
       }
       $http.get('https://registry.npmjs.org/-/all/static/today.json').then(function(info) {
         $scope.packages = info.data;
         $scope.randomize();
       });
     });
    </script>
  </head>
  <body ng-controller="npmTodayCtrl">
    <div><a href="" ng-click="randomize()">Random highlight:</a></div>
    <div ng-if="random" style="margin-top: 1em; font-size: x-large">
      <strong><a ng-href="https://npmjs.com/package/\{\{random.name\}\}">\{\{random.name\}\}</a></strong>
      \{\{random.description\}\}
    </div>
    <hr>
    <table>
      <tr ng-repeat="package in packages">
        <td><a ng-href="https://npmjs.com/package/\{\{package.name\}\}">\{\{package.name\}\}</a></td>
        <td>\{\{package.description\}\}</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>

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