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As as boss, I understand that happy employees are a good thing for everyone, but similarly it is not enough to convince me to use what I see as a seriously subs

by tensor 14y ago

As as boss, I understand that happy employees are a good thing for everyone, but similarly it is not enough to convince me to use what I see as a seriously substandard solution. From my point of view, Node.js is shaping up to be the php of 2012. It's proponents claim it's easy and fun and it's in a language that they are comfortable with. Meanwhile it's detractors see no real advantage over existing or other upcoming languages. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming it's quite as bad as php as that's something very hard to achieve, but equally I feel there are much better solutions. I'm not at all against new languages, but I'd sooner invest in a new language that brings something more serious to the table. Perhaps the language is more concise so that we can write less code. Perhaps it's really clean with high performance and a steller C FFI. Maybe it leverages exiting mature eco-systems of software such as the .Net or JVM stack. Do you not find Scala, Python, or Clojure fun? I would hope you do!

danneu 14y ago
The majority of my free time goes into the Ruby/Rails ecosystem, but I decided to finally jump into javascript for real and force myself to grok things like closures and context (still strugglin'!) the past month. Node isn't a new language. It's javascript. Node just gives javascript the rest of the web stack, conventions, and a package manager that feels like Ruby gems. Javascript already is the best solution for all the problems we're currently forced to use javascript for. It's the language the browser understands. I'm not here to be Node's white knight, but Node isn't just Yet Another Thing or Yet Another Language. It's javascript and, to me, it's making javascript into a language with an ecosystem similar to what I'm used to with Ruby. Javascript is already out there in the wild solving problems that Ruby/Python/Clojure can't.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  Javascript is already out there in the wild solving problems that Ruby/Python/Clojure can't. Examples?
  - zavulon 14y ago
    The entire front end side, for starters
    - tensor 14y ago
      Most companies already use multiple language, and for good reason as not all languages are suitable in all cases. The idea of having a single language everywhere is nice, but in practice this forces you into substandard solutions in some contexts. This is not a compelling argument for me. However, if you really do insist on having one language everywhere, you can also compile Clojure down to Javascript using a subset of Clojure called ClojureScript.Unlike Coffeescript, ClojureScript uses Clojure semantics and is not just a different syntax for Javascript. This doesn't save you from all the odd performance edge cases of Javascript, but at least it gives you conciseness and semantics of Lisp in the one situation where you have no choice of language: the browser.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

by tensor 14y ago

danneu 14y ago

The majority of my free time goes into the Ruby/Rails ecosystem, but I decided to finally jump into javascript for real and force myself to grok things like closures and context (still strugglin'!) the past month. Node isn't a new language. It's javascript. Node just gives javascript the rest of the web stack, conventions, and a package manager that feels like Ruby gems. Javascript already is the best solution for all the problems we're currently forced to use javascript for. It's the language the browser understands. I'm not here to be Node's white knight, but Node isn't just Yet Another Thing or Yet Another Language. It's javascript and, to me, it's making javascript into a language with an ecosystem similar to what I'm used to with Ruby. Javascript is already out there in the wild solving problems that Ruby/Python/Clojure can't.

stcredzero 14y ago
Javascript is already out there in the wild solving problems that Ruby/Python/Clojure can't. Examples?
- zavulon 14y ago
  The entire front end side, for starters
  - tensor 14y ago
    Most companies already use multiple language, and for good reason as not all languages are suitable in all cases. The idea of having a single language everywhere is nice, but in practice this forces you into substandard solutions in some contexts. This is not a compelling argument for me. However, if you really do insist on having one language everywhere, you can also compile Clojure down to Javascript using a subset of Clojure called ClojureScript.Unlike Coffeescript, ClojureScript uses Clojure semantics and is not just a different syntax for Javascript. This doesn't save you from all the odd performance edge cases of Javascript, but at least it gives you conciseness and semantics of Lisp in the one situation where you have no choice of language: the browser.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]