I would counter by pointing out that while that is true, the sorts of programmers who might use Node.js are dwarfed by the armies of incompetent untrained PHP d

I would counter by pointing out that while that is true, the sorts of programmers who might use Node.js are dwarfed by the armies of incompetent untrained PHP developers out there. The HN crowd doesn't really give you a good window into reality in this case. I also don't think that languages should worry about becoming "mainstream" for exactly that reason...