>I would say that node.js is probably selected more than anything else for speed of getting a project up and running. It's easy to find JavaScript devs. Writin

>I would say that node.js is probably selected more than anything else for speed of getting a project up and running. It's easy to find JavaScript devs. Writing JavaScript for the browser and writing it for Node.js are different beasts. It's "easy" to find JavaScript devs because most people have tinkered with jQuery and think that qualifies them. Furthermore, since the Node.js explosion in 2012, lots of posers have been trying to get into this scene. >JavaScript doesn't require a compilation step so iterating and debugging small changes is much faster. As another commenter pointed out, this is true, but most projects use a Grunt pipeline or something similar at this point, because they'd feel left out if they didn't. Just more groupthink from the Node.js camp. This isn't a unique property to Node.js. Pretty much everything that isn't Java, C#, or mega-crusty pre-Perl CGI has it. However, compilation is actually pretty useful; it's not something you necessarily want to throw away. Java and C# devs seem plenty capable of training their Alt+Tab / F5 fingers to get tweaked code running fast. >There's a ton of pre-build frameworks for serving up APIs even with very little code for CRUD apps. There may be, but the JavaScript ecosystem changes so quickly and integrates so many esoteric, not-supported-anymore-after-next-Tuesday things that it's offputting. My experience with the code quality of a lot of common libraries has not been great either. I personally detest the Node.js fad and can't wait for it to die out. I have never been able to find someone who can actually give me a good reason for it to exist. At least when RoR was the fad there was a sensible reason behind it: PHP sucked. I really don't know why Node.js even exists except to push buzzwords and execute a really terrifyingly bad idea of making everything JavaScript. Even Eich admits that JavaScript was a one-week, publish-or-die project that did many things wrong. It's frankly embarrassing that we still use it as the primary language in our browsers 20 years later. I don't know who looks at that and says "Let's take this to the backend, baby!" Personal ambition is basically the only reason I can think of for Node.js to exist, both in general and in any specific organization. People see it as a tool to colonize parts of their company. That's the only explanation, because they assuredly don't see any technical benefits in it.