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I’m not over the moon with it but I’m kind of interested to know why I need a Node successor at all. Both Bun and Deno are VC funded tools so I have base level
by afavour 3y ago
I’m not over the moon with it but I’m kind of interested to know why I need a Node successor at all. Both Bun and Deno are VC funded tools so I have base level suspicion around monetization and longevity.
It seems Bun’s major selling point is performance. I can’t say I’ve really run into massive performance concerns with Node. It isn’t earth shatteringly fast but I’m way more likely to run into IO constraints than Node speed issues.
Deno’s major selling point was that it was Node Done Right in many ways: better packaging, ES6 all the way, etc. (a pitch I was sold on!) but it seems they gave up trying to create a new ecosystem and instead are adding Node compatibility.
Alongside all of this I'm encouraged by a number of recent Node improvements like having its own test runner and built in .env support. So I’m struggling to see good reason to use either Bun or Deno. Even if I were to switch I'd need to make sure I have a concrete path back to Node should the new generation tool become unviable.
- madsbuch 3y agoIt is well explained in the blog article: https://bun.sh/blog/bun-v1.0#why-bun-exists https://bun.sh/blog/bun-v1.0#why-bun-exists This is extremely compelling for frontend DX.
- afavour 3y agoThat kind of speaks to my point, though: a number of the features listed there (e.g. test runner, .env file support, watch mode) have either been recently added to Node or will be soon (and are available today as experimental flags). The bundler stuff is certainly more compelling though the page doesn't specify what makes it better than esbuild except that it comes built-in... but that's where, for me, VC concerns raise their head. If I go all in on Bun bundler, what happens if the company switches their priority towards monetization and neglects the bundler? I'm going to have to unroll all the configuration work I will have done and go back to an external bundling library. And it's still not entirely clear what I gain!
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y agoIf it delivers on the promise of solving the require vs import module nonsense that would be enough for me. Maybe node copies that too, but that's also a win imo.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y agoDoes Deno suffer from that in the first place? I don't know what that issue even is, so I'm just asking.
- Rapzid 3y agoGetting VC funded HHVM vibes. Not sure how they plan on monetizing.
- afavour 3y agoSeems they both have similar plans: serverless hosting, continuous integration, etc. etc. All valid ideas. But the involvement of VCs makes me wonder what kind of scale they're going to be expected to achieve and what will happen if they don't.
- Rapzid 3y agoI'm super skeptical of the viability, much less the desirability, of language VM specific CI and hosting services.. Feels like an acquisition by Cloudflare/Vercel is a more likely exit scenario.. But then if we get an HHVM repeat and most of the benefits are just introduced into Node proper what's the real value to the aquirer? Aqui-hire? Deno has raised at least $25m though, and bun $7m.. I guess most startups fail so maybe there is just no answer.
- bsimpson 3y agoGoogle is failing me - what's the VC spin on HHVM?
- Rapzid 3y agoVC spin? HipHop Virtual Machine was created over a decade ago to address serious performance issues with PHP. This spurred(lit a fire?) serious efforts to address the issues in PHP proper. Over a rather short period of time PHP became performant enough that HHVM was sunsetted. I think the history here would call into question the viability of Bun as a monetary investment. It may end up a net good for the ecosystem , but if the major benefits can just be incorporated back into Node proper what are the ROI prospects?
- bsimpson 3y ago