5 ms·

Really wondering: who is developing Node/JS on Windows nowadays? Not that I don't like Windows (I like W10 + the new Ubuntu within efforts a lot), but the ecosy

Really wondering: who is developing Node/JS on Windows nowadays? Not that I don't like Windows (I like W10 + the new Ubuntu within efforts a lot), but the ecosystem around Node is so much tailored around Linux. Even with OSX where we have an excellent support, there's still some slight friction when deploying to Ubuntu. Or is Windows 10 a viable alternative for Node devs?

LionessLover 10y ago
I do, and I'm a Unix person, even having contributed code to the Linux kernel and I've used Unix - Solaris, HP-UX, NeXTSTEP, Linux, Reliant Unix (Siemens), IRIX (SGI) since 1994. It's just that over time I fond it more and more of a -useless - hassle to keep a VM with Linux on my desktop, and pure Linux desktop never was a question (for various reasons). When I install git for windows and ConEmu64 I have a good terminal and a bash and the basic Unix command line tools. The IDE and node.js are the same anyway. I configure the IDE and git so that my projects only have one type of line endings (Unix). I have zero Windows server experience since that is all Unix for me, but on the (developer) desktop I don't feel any need for Unix.
pingec 10y ago
I develop on Windows and deploy to Linux regularly, zero problems. Most of the projects are purely js with no dependencies on binaries.
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  Last time I tried to do something with Node on Windows I ran into the maximum path length issue, but I guess npm 3 is supposed to help with that?
  - novaleaf 10y ago
    Correct, i have not seen the path issue since 3.x
duncanawoods 10y ago
Yeah, I do. Workstation is W10, Laptop OSX and deploy to Linux. I don't have any problems. I have sometimes found bugs introduced into a library that only affects one platform but not the others. This has happened on things like grunt-plugins rather than more critical libraries. It hasn't caused any drama other than delaying updating a dependency until its fixed.
aquadrop 10y ago
Node.JS is actually pretty well adjusted for Windows. They made it cross-platform from the beginning and you have zero problems unless need some linux-compiled native dependencies. VS2015 is using node successfully for built-in grunt/gulp task runner.
shados 10y ago
I don't have a link, but there was a note on the Webstorm blog or whatever about how they were not adding Flow support because the majority of their users were on Windows. Obviously, considering the kind of tooling Webstorm provides, it would have a huge selection bias...but Jetbrains seems to be making money with a product for JavaScript that mostly caters to Windows users. So there's "enough" Windows users doing JS on Windows. Heck. Support/doc/headway aside, I strongly feel it was one of the big factors that pushed TypeScript beyond the critical mass. You just can't make a JS dev tool *nix only and expect critical adoption. Atom editor had the same issue.
zxcvcxz 10y ago
I have to go through shit like this in Windows all the time: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34906807/error-building-npm-bcrypt-package-on-windows-10 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34906807/error-building-n... Upgrading bcrypt didn't work for me.... I ended up installing Linux on a VM and developing inside the VM because that's the only way bcrypt would install. Of course, I can usually get it to work some how, but I don't have these issues on Linux. Basically node works "good enough" on Windows, especially if you don't value your time.
skrebbel 10y ago
> but the ecosystem around Node is so much tailored around Linux I really don't understand why people keep saying this, it's simply not true. Node works fantastically on Windows. I've yet to come across a library that won't work on my Windows box (barring obviously platform specific stuff). Node-gyp works fine too, and many libraries with native code offer Windows versions. Especially when comparing to e.g. Ruby or Python, it's a world of difference. With Ruby you can't even use bundler on Windows and then deploy on Linux. It seems all the basic fundamental design choices of Node and NPM were made with portability in mind. I'm frankly quite impressed. Source: been running teams doing frontend and node for almost 3 years now, every team had at least one Win dev and at least one OSX dev, every team deployed to Linux. 0 problems, ever.
- Aldo_MX 10y ago
  > Node works fantastically on Windows. I beg to differ 1. npm install gulp 2. try to delete the node_modules folder 3. waste time fighting windows' legacy stuff (260 max path length in almost everything: explorer, cmd, git bash, etc.) 4. come across rimraf eventually I wouldn't describe that flow as "fantastically" unless you mean "fantastically broken".
  - Joeri 10y ago
    Not that it helps today, but the upcoming w10 anniversary update is going to get rid of the 260 char path length limit. Microsoft is waking up to the fact that developers mostly aren't using microsoft dev tools anymore. Hence, docker on windows, ubuntu on windows, redesigned env vars dialog, no more path length limit, nicer command prompt, etc...
    - skrebbel 10y ago
      Cool! About time.
    - livus 10y ago
      Finally. But I wish microsoft would've done it sooner. Now a UNIX convert. Forever a convert. I'm no longer fighting my system to get shit done.
whatever_dude 10y ago
It works 99% of the time. But yes - some times you hit a snag as when people base their npm scripts in some shell commands, or you need some strange npm dependency that for some odd reason is not cross platform. Once the next Windows 10 update makes bash available to everyone, though, that'll become a non-issue.
16bytes 10y ago
We deploy node on windows server in production. It wouldn't be my first choice if I was deploying a new node project. In this case, however, it nicely integrates into our existing windows infrastructure. I haven't found any reason to recommend against deploying node on windows. To this point it has just worked.
bmj 10y ago
Count me in as a Node/JS developer on Windows 10. Current project is a Cordova app that needs to run on a dedicated Windows 10 tablet (the app is used in clinics to collect patient information).
mendelk 10y ago
Tweet from npm ceo Isaac Schlueter in 11/2015: > 42% of @nodejs users use Windows as their desktop env. More than any single *nix. https://twitter.com/izs/status/661597221763203072 https://twitter.com/izs/status/661597221763203072

LionessLover 10y ago

I do, and I'm a Unix person, even having contributed code to the Linux kernel and I've used Unix - Solaris, HP-UX, NeXTSTEP, Linux, Reliant Unix (Siemens), IRIX (SGI) since 1994. It's just that over time I fond it more and more of a -useless - hassle to keep a VM with Linux on my desktop, and pure Linux desktop never was a question (for various reasons). When I install git for windows and ConEmu64 I have a good terminal and a bash and the basic Unix command line tools. The IDE and node.js are the same anyway. I configure the IDE and git so that my projects only have one type of line endings (Unix). I have zero Windows server experience since that is all Unix for me, but on the (developer) desktop I don't feel any need for Unix.

pingec 10y ago

I develop on Windows and deploy to Linux regularly, zero problems. Most of the projects are purely js with no dependencies on binaries.

tlrobinson 10y ago
Last time I tried to do something with Node on Windows I ran into the maximum path length issue, but I guess npm 3 is supposed to help with that?
- novaleaf 10y ago
  Correct, i have not seen the path issue since 3.x

duncanawoods 10y ago

Yeah, I do. Workstation is W10, Laptop OSX and deploy to Linux. I don't have any problems. I have sometimes found bugs introduced into a library that only affects one platform but not the others. This has happened on things like grunt-plugins rather than more critical libraries. It hasn't caused any drama other than delaying updating a dependency until its fixed.

aquadrop 10y ago

Node.JS is actually pretty well adjusted for Windows. They made it cross-platform from the beginning and you have zero problems unless need some linux-compiled native dependencies. VS2015 is using node successfully for built-in grunt/gulp task runner.

shados 10y ago

I don't have a link, but there was a note on the Webstorm blog or whatever about how they were not adding Flow support because the majority of their users were on Windows. Obviously, considering the kind of tooling Webstorm provides, it would have a huge selection bias...but Jetbrains seems to be making money with a product for JavaScript that mostly caters to Windows users. So there's "enough" Windows users doing JS on Windows. Heck. Support/doc/headway aside, I strongly feel it was one of the big factors that pushed TypeScript beyond the critical mass. You just can't make a JS dev tool *nix only and expect critical adoption. Atom editor had the same issue.

zxcvcxz 10y ago

I have to go through shit like this in Windows all the time: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34906807/error-building-npm-bcrypt-package-on-windows-10 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34906807/error-building-n... Upgrading bcrypt didn't work for me.... I ended up installing Linux on a VM and developing inside the VM because that's the only way bcrypt would install. Of course, I can usually get it to work some how, but I don't have these issues on Linux. Basically node works "good enough" on Windows, especially if you don't value your time.

skrebbel 10y ago

> but the ecosystem around Node is so much tailored around Linux I really don't understand why people keep saying this, it's simply not true. Node works fantastically on Windows. I've yet to come across a library that won't work on my Windows box (barring obviously platform specific stuff). Node-gyp works fine too, and many libraries with native code offer Windows versions. Especially when comparing to e.g. Ruby or Python, it's a world of difference. With Ruby you can't even use bundler on Windows and then deploy on Linux. It seems all the basic fundamental design choices of Node and NPM were made with portability in mind. I'm frankly quite impressed. Source: been running teams doing frontend and node for almost 3 years now, every team had at least one Win dev and at least one OSX dev, every team deployed to Linux. 0 problems, ever.

Aldo_MX 10y ago
> Node works fantastically on Windows. I beg to differ 1. npm install gulp 2. try to delete the node_modules folder 3. waste time fighting windows' legacy stuff (260 max path length in almost everything: explorer, cmd, git bash, etc.) 4. come across rimraf eventually I wouldn't describe that flow as "fantastically" unless you mean "fantastically broken".
- Joeri 10y ago
  Not that it helps today, but the upcoming w10 anniversary update is going to get rid of the 260 char path length limit. Microsoft is waking up to the fact that developers mostly aren't using microsoft dev tools anymore. Hence, docker on windows, ubuntu on windows, redesigned env vars dialog, no more path length limit, nicer command prompt, etc...
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    Cool! About time.
  - livus 10y ago
    Finally. But I wish microsoft would've done it sooner. Now a UNIX convert. Forever a convert. I'm no longer fighting my system to get shit done.

whatever_dude 10y ago

It works 99% of the time. But yes - some times you hit a snag as when people base their npm scripts in some shell commands, or you need some strange npm dependency that for some odd reason is not cross platform. Once the next Windows 10 update makes bash available to everyone, though, that'll become a non-issue.

16bytes 10y ago

We deploy node on windows server in production. It wouldn't be my first choice if I was deploying a new node project. In this case, however, it nicely integrates into our existing windows infrastructure. I haven't found any reason to recommend against deploying node on windows. To this point it has just worked.

bmj 10y ago

Count me in as a Node/JS developer on Windows 10. Current project is a Cordova app that needs to run on a dedicated Windows 10 tablet (the app is used in clinics to collect patient information).

mendelk 10y ago

Tweet from npm ceo Isaac Schlueter in 11/2015: > 42% of @nodejs users use Windows as their desktop env. More than any single *nix. https://twitter.com/izs/status/661597221763203072 https://twitter.com/izs/status/661597221763203072