NPM chokes for me about 1 time out of 10. The main repo has reliability issues. A lot of the libs install executables that require sudo. Java solved dependency management years ago. I don't know why every language doesn't just rely on a classpath.
I've never had any issues with npm and I started coding about 2 years ago. In fact I didn't have any issues with npm when I first started. Maybe you need to have a friend show you how to do it correctly. I can't imagine what your issue is.
