Unbundling the standard library

The author, Bradley Nesbitt (or a pseudonym), is writing about a shift in the software industry where programming languages and frameworks are moving away from large, built-in "standard libraries" (collections of pre-written code for common tasks like file I/O, networking, and data structures). Historically, languages like Python, Java, and Go have shipped with extensive standard libraries, letting developers build applications without installing many third-party packages. This post argues that this model is breaking down: standard libraries are becoming too slow to update, too large to maintain, and too opinionated. Instead, the ecosystem is moving toward "unbundling" — offering core functionality through external package managers (e.g., npm, pip, crates.io, Go modules). The post likely discusses the trade-offs: faster innovation and smaller core languages vs. dependency hell, fragmentation, and security risks from pulling in dozens of tiny external packages for basic tasks. The title is a pun on the old programming adage "batteries included" (used to describe Python's rich standard library) being replaced by "batteries sold separately."