What he said... I'll also add, that it's written for Javascript should not be understated - not only is it one of the most widely used and accessible languages

What he said... I'll also add, that it's written for Javascript should not be understated - not only is it one of the most widely used and accessible languages around, but I'd wager no other platform has the amount of competitive development that Javascript does - right now - with a slew of engines that improve in performance by magnitudes year after year. I don't know why Ryan didn't just call it Node. I think most people are thrown off by the .js.