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"The problem I have is processing a lot of data quickly" It seems that the author needs something like super performant Hadoop++. Node doesn't address these pr

"The problem I have is processing a lot of data quickly" It seems that the author needs something like super performant Hadoop++. Node doesn't address these problems. "Node enthusiasts are front-end coders not wanting to do server coding" I think he missed the point there. Using Javascript as a server side language, node has bridged a gap so many web programmers have been crossing. With node and mongodb, JSON is a language native to the entire webstack -- which is a very powerful idea. We are able to sync datastructures across server and client now. This rant sounds very similar to "NoSQL DBs will never reach the competence and performance of the RDBMS".

mikescar 15y ago
> With node and mongodb, JSON is a language native to the entire webstack -- which is a very powerful idea. We are able to sync datastructures across server and client now. Honest question here -- outside of not calling input and output transforms to or from JSON and native array/list/whatever, what is the new ability and the powerful idea? Aren't the two transforms pretty insignificant in practice?
- nakkiel 15y ago
  Agreed. But even "not calling input and output transforms" is incorrect. JSON, just like XML or the next thing we will come up with, has to be parsed to be any use. This may happen under the hood but this is still happening. I guess what mikescar finds attractive is the illusion that things are "integrated" and talking to each other in a format that doesn't look like one (it seems to be part of the programming language).
MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
You have solved a problem that didn't exist -- XML and HTML were both reasonable linguafrancas prior to JSON's invention. JavaScript as a server-side langauge is not a good thing; JavaScript is not a good systems language. We've already had an era of a poor systems language (PHP) being predominant in the web application space, and the conclusion was that there are better languages which can more effectively represent both general systems tasks, and specialized web tasks. NoSQL databases will never be relational DBs because they explicitly eschew the relational algebra that powers the latter. Similarly, Node isn't a serious server-side solution explicitly because of its reliance on JavaScript. Finally, I should point out that JSON isn't a subset of JavaScript. This means that you can't exec it as JavaScript in all cases, and even if you could, exec/eval is massively dangerous and should be avoided. This means that you're parsing JSON, which means that you no longer have an advantage over other languages -- Perl, Python, and Ruby all have very strong JSON support. (Python even has it in its standard library now.)
- nakkiel 15y ago
  Regarding Javascript, I think it suits well the async paradigm because that's how people expect Javascript to be. Why isn't Javascript a good server-side language?
  - smtf 15y ago
    I agree that js does support the async paradigm for the reason you mentioned; however, at the risk of sounding like I'm speaking for the op js would not be my first choice for system or server side programming. The simple reason being that javascript's behavior is often near inexplicable, many examples can be found here: http://wtfjs.com http://wtfjs.com. I'm tolerant of that strangeness while manipulating the DOM but really only because there are no other choices.
    - ricardobeat 15y ago
      Every language has it's own WTFs. Many of the ones in Javascript are shared with Ruby, Python and other interpreted languages. They hardly bite anyone in a real project.
      - smtf 15y ago
        If by real you mean yours fine; however, your projects are not everyone's. If you'd like you could respond with specific cases you've used javascript for system or server level programming.
- htilford 15y ago
  What part of JSON isn't a subset of JavaScript? "JSON is a subset of the object literal notation of JavaScript. Since JSON is a subset of JavaScript, it can be used in the language with no muss or fuss." http://www.json.org/js.html http://www.json.org/js.html
  - MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
    http://timelessrepo.com/json-isnt-a-javascript-subset http://timelessrepo.com/json-isnt-a-javascript-subset Also see my other reply.
dextorious 15y ago
"""This rant sounds very similar to "NoSQL DBs will never reach the competence and performance of the RDBMS".""" Well, performance wise NoSQL DBs are faster. In anybody doubting that? As for the competence part, well SQL DBs (by which I don't mean MySQL) are based on a little something called Relational Algebra. Which is math. Which is a (formally) proven and coherent set of methods for data representation and querying. NoSQL DBs are just ad hoc solutions. Not the same thing.

mikescar 15y ago

> With node and mongodb, JSON is a language native to the entire webstack -- which is a very powerful idea. We are able to sync datastructures across server and client now. Honest question here -- outside of not calling input and output transforms to or from JSON and native array/list/whatever, what is the new ability and the powerful idea? Aren't the two transforms pretty insignificant in practice?

nakkiel 15y ago
Agreed. But even "not calling input and output transforms" is incorrect. JSON, just like XML or the next thing we will come up with, has to be parsed to be any use. This may happen under the hood but this is still happening. I guess what mikescar finds attractive is the illusion that things are "integrated" and talking to each other in a format that doesn't look like one (it seems to be part of the programming language).

MostAwesomeDude 15y ago

You have solved a problem that didn't exist -- XML and HTML were both reasonable linguafrancas prior to JSON's invention. JavaScript as a server-side langauge is not a good thing; JavaScript is not a good systems language. We've already had an era of a poor systems language (PHP) being predominant in the web application space, and the conclusion was that there are better languages which can more effectively represent both general systems tasks, and specialized web tasks. NoSQL databases will never be relational DBs because they explicitly eschew the relational algebra that powers the latter. Similarly, Node isn't a serious server-side solution explicitly because of its reliance on JavaScript. Finally, I should point out that JSON isn't a subset of JavaScript. This means that you can't exec it as JavaScript in all cases, and even if you could, exec/eval is massively dangerous and should be avoided. This means that you're parsing JSON, which means that you no longer have an advantage over other languages -- Perl, Python, and Ruby all have very strong JSON support. (Python even has it in its standard library now.)

nakkiel 15y ago
Regarding Javascript, I think it suits well the async paradigm because that's how people expect Javascript to be. Why isn't Javascript a good server-side language?
- smtf 15y ago
  I agree that js does support the async paradigm for the reason you mentioned; however, at the risk of sounding like I'm speaking for the op js would not be my first choice for system or server side programming. The simple reason being that javascript's behavior is often near inexplicable, many examples can be found here: http://wtfjs.com http://wtfjs.com. I'm tolerant of that strangeness while manipulating the DOM but really only because there are no other choices.
  - ricardobeat 15y ago
    Every language has it's own WTFs. Many of the ones in Javascript are shared with Ruby, Python and other interpreted languages. They hardly bite anyone in a real project.
    - smtf 15y ago
      If by real you mean yours fine; however, your projects are not everyone's. If you'd like you could respond with specific cases you've used javascript for system or server level programming.
htilford 15y ago
What part of JSON isn't a subset of JavaScript? "JSON is a subset of the object literal notation of JavaScript. Since JSON is a subset of JavaScript, it can be used in the language with no muss or fuss." http://www.json.org/js.html http://www.json.org/js.html
- MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
  http://timelessrepo.com/json-isnt-a-javascript-subset http://timelessrepo.com/json-isnt-a-javascript-subset Also see my other reply.

dextorious 15y ago

"""This rant sounds very similar to "NoSQL DBs will never reach the competence and performance of the RDBMS".""" Well, performance wise NoSQL DBs are faster. In anybody doubting that? As for the competence part, well SQL DBs (by which I don't mean MySQL) are based on a little something called Relational Algebra. Which is math. Which is a (formally) proven and coherent set of methods for data representation and querying. NoSQL DBs are just ad hoc solutions. Not the same thing.