npm weekly #105: We shut down npm’s IRC channel, chatting with JavaScript Studio, plus see npm in a glossy print mag!

Say goodbye to #npm on IRC, friends
Community is important to us, and maintaining a welcoming, inclusive one even more so. With a team of our size, maintaining and moderating IRC is just not feasible.

If you try to access the #npm channel on irc.freenode.net, you’ll now be directed to the npm blog instead. There, you’ll find a brief message and a long list of resources you can use to find answers for the questions and the community you’re looking for.
We visited PayPal IRL

Earlier this week, npm humans Laurie Voss and Kat Marchán paid a visit to the PayPal engineering team. They gave a presentation on all the cool things you can now do with npm@5 and npx! Thanks for having us, PayPal. We’ll be getting a transcript of the presentation, so stay tuned!
Interested in hanging out and plying us for socks at your company? Say hey.
We’ll be at JSKongress this fall

The team at JS Kongress Munich have started announcing speakers, and, luckily for you, npm human Ashley Williams is one of them! She’ll be giving a keynote there, as will npm alum Lin Clark. Tickets are now on sale for the November 13–14event.
What we’re reading: Exploring the basics of computer science every Monday for a year.
The series basecs, created by Vaideshi Joshi, is one of the best things we’ve read this year. Each Monday they release a new post on the basics of computer science. Take a look at this week’s post to get started: Getting To The Root Of Sorting With Radix Sort.
Reminder: verify your email
Last week, we announced that in order to publish new packages you will need to verify your email address. That change is now in effect! Questions? Kindly reach out to our awesome support friends.
npm gives JavaScript Studio the infrastructure it needs
Continuing in our series of conversations with cool teams that use npm at work, we chat with Max Antoni, creator of JavaScript Studio.
JavaScript Studio is a cloud services company that assists devs in scanning their source code for errors. Using npm private packages has made modular projects way more approachable for them and their clients.
Interested in telling your story? Get in touch!
npm gets glossy in Content Mag

npm was featured in Content Magazine in their profile on npm CEO Isaac Schlueter. You can see a preview of the interview online; for the full profile experience, go snag a print copy.
Hilariously, almost all of the stats in this article are already outdated, because y’all sure do like writing JavaScript.
A demo full of descriptions
This is very cool: Stephen Ball created a short video demoing a shell script he wrote. It outputs descriptions and homepages for npm dependencies found in the package.json of the current directory.
It’s super useful. Check it out!
Recommended module: gamblers-dice
We’ll be real honest with you, the README for gamblers-dice is one of the best we’ve ever read. “A terrible idea, now real.” Created by Evan Verworn, gamblers-dice came about after Evan created a dice-rolling chatbot that people criticized as being faulty.
You’ll just have to read it and try it. Trust us.
Wrap yourself (or your laptop cover) in this high-quality meme

We loved seeing this playful meme combining hip hop greats Run DMC and npm, created by the very talented Laura Wyatt. You can snag a sticker or a t-shirt and take npm run on the go!
Get free socks! Just fix some bugs.
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