The author brings up an excellent point, but I disagree with the solution. We should of course reuse existing, well-tested code if it available, even for simple things like left-padding. The real issue here is that there is a module for left-pad alone. If it were something like StringUtils module with a bunch of commonly used string functionality, it would have been great.

What is it about the node community that triggered this misunderstanding of package management and code reuse?