3 ms·
I'm not a node.js programmer by trade, so maybe I have this all wrong, but I thought the main selling point of the language was that it is fast. The thing is,
by Jeema101 6y ago
I'm not a node.js programmer by trade, so maybe I have this all wrong, but I thought the main selling point of the language was that it is fast.
The thing is, everything in computer science comes with a tradeoff: the tradeoff in this case seems to be that, in gaining speed, now you are sacrificing a layer of abstraction that would normally be hidden by the operating system.
What I mean by that is that instead of just letting the operating system handle putting a thread to sleep when it blocks, and then waking it back up when it's ready (for example during a database query), now you have to start explicitly handling that blocking yourself in the form of callbacks.
It seems like the author is realizing that maybe that is not really ideal.
- 7Uzyd7H80egR 6y agoYeah, I think that's not quite right. I think the main selling point of Node has always been that it's Javascript and thus you can use the same language, and people, to do both frontend and backend development. Node is not fast and it's not trying to compete with compiled language in that regard.
- blandflakes 6y agoFWIW I have _heard_ the pitch that node.js is fast, here on HN and elsewhere, but most times it's fast compared to like... Ruby. Which is fine, but that's not the only competition in town for node.js.