7 ms·

"We are now at about 8 million estimated users and still growing at about 100 percent a year. We haven’t passed Java in terms of users yet, but by this time ne

"We are now at about 8 million estimated users and still growing at about 100 percent a year. We haven’t passed Java in terms of users yet, but by this time next year at the current growth, we will surpass." It's not clear whether 'user' means node.js developer or someone deploying the software or something else altogether. It's also not stated where this number came from, and I'd imagine it would be fairly difficult to measure anyway.

sayurichick 9y ago
measure? maybe. But as someone who has been on node since v0.6, I have witness/experienced the improvements of the ecosystem over the years, as well as the number of articles/tutorials and projects. The community is growing faster than any other language out there so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see node surpass java (in whatever metric you want).
- jareds 9y ago
  If my metric is value provided by software running in production I can't see Node overtaking 20 years of JAVA code by this time next year.
jrs95 9y ago
If it is by installs, electron apps are probably making up a decent portion of that. I don't think Node is likely anywhere near beating Java in it's traditional enterprise use cases.
- nailer 9y ago
  Why would they include installs of electron apps in node.js downloads?
  - jrs95 9y ago
    They never really said what 8 million users meant, but that just seemed to be one area in which Node has a strong presence that Java doesn't. But if they're just counting people downloading Node, they're getting a huge boost from people developing frontend JS stuff that are never actually deploying Node to production. So comparing that to Java isn't exactly fair.
frozenport 9y ago
On the other side 16 million Java users sounds like a small amount. In the advertising literature you see claims of billions of devices running the environment, and the language is used is used in a few hundred million more embedded devices.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  It would only take a handful of users at one phone manufacturer to get a JRE on millions of devices. It was this sort of "billions of devices!" claim years ago that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Going back to early/mid 2000s, that hype was all over the place, but could you install your own code on those devices? Generally not. Having a JRE on 500 million set-top boxes does very little for the Java developer population's ability to deploy code - it only help(s|ed) the developers employed at the set-top box company.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    It's also that those devices are generally devices noone cares about. Featurephones, set-top boxes, etc.
- coldtea 9y ago
  2 programmers can write some embedded software Java that runs on 1 billion devices.
jbergstroem 9y ago
Perhaps lesser known: you can find node.js download metrics here: https://nodejs.org/metrics/ https://nodejs.org/metrics/ - you can also download raw (anonymized) data to draw additional conclusions (link at page). If you find a bug, feel free to report it with our infra/build team: https://github.com/nodejs/build https://github.com/nodejs/build

sayurichick 9y ago

measure? maybe. But as someone who has been on node since v0.6, I have witness/experienced the improvements of the ecosystem over the years, as well as the number of articles/tutorials and projects. The community is growing faster than any other language out there so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see node surpass java (in whatever metric you want).

jareds 9y ago
If my metric is value provided by software running in production I can't see Node overtaking 20 years of JAVA code by this time next year.

jrs95 9y ago

If it is by installs, electron apps are probably making up a decent portion of that. I don't think Node is likely anywhere near beating Java in it's traditional enterprise use cases.

nailer 9y ago
Why would they include installs of electron apps in node.js downloads?
- jrs95 9y ago
  They never really said what 8 million users meant, but that just seemed to be one area in which Node has a strong presence that Java doesn't. But if they're just counting people downloading Node, they're getting a huge boost from people developing frontend JS stuff that are never actually deploying Node to production. So comparing that to Java isn't exactly fair.

frozenport 9y ago

On the other side 16 million Java users sounds like a small amount. In the advertising literature you see claims of billions of devices running the environment, and the language is used is used in a few hundred million more embedded devices.

mgkimsal 9y ago
It would only take a handful of users at one phone manufacturer to get a JRE on millions of devices. It was this sort of "billions of devices!" claim years ago that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Going back to early/mid 2000s, that hype was all over the place, but could you install your own code on those devices? Generally not. Having a JRE on 500 million set-top boxes does very little for the Java developer population's ability to deploy code - it only help(s|ed) the developers employed at the set-top box company.
- coldtea 9y ago
  It's also that those devices are generally devices noone cares about. Featurephones, set-top boxes, etc.
coldtea 9y ago
2 programmers can write some embedded software Java that runs on 1 billion devices.

jbergstroem 9y ago

Perhaps lesser known: you can find node.js download metrics here: https://nodejs.org/metrics/ https://nodejs.org/metrics/ - you can also download raw (anonymized) data to draw additional conclusions (link at page). If you find a bug, feel free to report it with our infra/build team: https://github.com/nodejs/build https://github.com/nodejs/build