This; each subproject having its own nested string of (often the same) dependencies just seems wasteful of me.
I like Maven's approach better; a centralized repository directory. In Node / NPM's case, given that each library has a simple name, I can imagine a directory structure ~/.node_modules/package/1.0.0. Severely reduces filesystem depth, and probably fixes re-downloads of the same package / versions too. Only requirements are a rewrite or update of node's require method, NPM's package install directory and maybe some more strictness about NPM releases.
I like Maven's approach better; a centralized repository directory. In Node / NPM's case, given that each library has a simple name, I can imagine a directory structure ~/.node_modules/package/1.0.0. Severely reduces filesystem depth, and probably fixes re-downloads of the same package / versions too. Only requirements are a rewrite or update of node's require method, NPM's package install directory and maybe some more strictness about NPM releases.