I did look at the project, and it didn't mention it was a leaning exercise, then, pointing out that requiring a gig of dependencies is questionable is reasonable.
It's a repetitive trope complaint that is reducible to "I don't like these things". Not liking these things is reasonable but it's bad HN commentary because generic repetition is bad HN commentary.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html