That's not the problem. There is a cultural (and partly technical) aversion in JavaScript to large libraries - this is where the issue comes from. So, instead of having something like org.apache.commons in Java or Boost in C++ or Posix in C, larger libraries that curate a bunch of utilities missing from the standard library, you get an uncountable number of small standalone libraries.

I would bet that you'll find a third party `leftpad` implementation in org.apache.commons or in Spring or in some other collection of utils in Java. The difference isn't the need for 3rd party software to fix gaps in the standard library - it's the preference for hundreds of small dependencies instead of one or two larger ones.

1000% agree. Javascript is weak in this regard if you compare it to major programming languages. It just adds unnecessary security risks not having a language with built in imports for common things like making API calls out or parsing JSON, for example.