What Really happened to Faker.js?
Hold On… so as you are on this article, there can only be two main reasons. The first and the most legit one is to find an answer to your curious question about “What really happened to Faker.js?” or the other option is, you got here while surfing the Medium Articles.
To be honest, after finding out this not so awesome dev news, I couldn’t resist to pen down about the open-source scenario, in a subtle crisp manner.
Build Up
Recently, I was making a project using the TypeScript programming language. Well, TypeScript is genuinely the best I would have been worked with yet, well, this could be the next possible title to write on. Apparently, when I was in the final stage of my TypeScript Project, my code abruptly broke down. I debugged for hours and couldn’t find anything wrong with the code. Ultimately, the bug was in an npm package, which you and I probably can never think of. I was supposed to use a standard open-source node package called Faker.js. And, this is the place where code messed up.
Yes, at Faker.js
As a developer, you must have been aware of the power of faker.js. On the off chance, if you do not belong to a technical background, let us quickly understand an outline of this beautiful package.
What is Faker.js?
Faker.js is a JavaScript library for producing fake data. Forgery Information is valuable when building and testing our application. The faker. js can create fake data for different regions, including address, trade, organization, date, finance, picture, irregular, name, or anything you can think of. Alternatively, Faker.js is an open-source package, built-in node.js for generating as much fake data as you want.
Ironically, faker.js proved to be a faithful companion for a developer in terms of saving manual data creation and valuable time.
The faker.js package was created by Aaron Swartz. It’s sad to know, such a legend is no more in this world due to some pitiful reasons. In case, you want to find about his life and other such stuff, I strongly recommend “The Internet’s Own Boy” documentary about his life.
What Really Happened & Why Hype?
Around 2 weeks ago, from the date of publishing of this particular article, the code repository of faker.js, with almost 1.3k stars has been hacked. As a matter of fact, the whole Github repository was surpassed by a single commit that says, “Endgame”. The Readme file is no longer legit, and shows, “What really happened to Aaron Swartz?”. In turn, that eventually crashed many running web applications and projects.
This incident led to massive outrage about the Dark Side of Open Source. We are nearly dependent on open source communities for coding the giant applications, and what if the source gets corrupted, which is exactly the case that happened.
Endgame
However, on a personal belief, this matter has not been on fire as it should. Whatever happens, happens for a reason, probably to teach us a reason for dependability. So, this can be your call for open source community to either,
“Take what you can, and give nothing back” or “Take what you can, and revert back the most you can”.
This is all about faker.js in this piece. You may comment down your alternatives for faker.js. Thanks for reading.
PS. TypeScript is my new love ❤, expect a blog on it soon. Till then, watch out for this amazing video by Fireship. Link
