You don't need to use github, but even in a team of one git makes sense. You can use your locally installed TFS server for that. Source control really brings value to the development and the power of git branching is second to none. As for npm packages, if you use any web framework, like Angular, there's no way around it. Is it more complicated than it used to be? Yes, no doubt about it. Messier? Heck yes. Impossible? Nope. I'm in my mid fifties and working with a team on average 20 years my juniors. I can still keep up... I assure you they're not immune to these things. The issue with most of them is that they don't have a reference point in the past, to judge things in perspective. The current tech and work style is all they know and they believe it's the best. As a result they over-complicate things. There will be dependency injection, services and all that good stuff even if they have to write a simple console app to load a file...