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> There are maaaany backends written in JavaScript (nodejs) Are there? I honestly don't know. I feel like it depends on how you count them. Are there JS/TS

> There are maaaany backends written in JavaScript (nodejs) Are there? I honestly don't know. I feel like it depends on how you count them. Are there JS/TS/nodejs "Backends For Frontends" (BFFs)? Yeah, I could see that, but then in that case there's at least as many other backends behind them, probably written in something else. Are there JS/TS/nodejs backends, mediating interaction with upstream databases in large enterprise organizations? I highly doubt it.

calmoo 3y ago
Yes, node/TS backend APIs are extremely common.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  Are they more common, or less common, than Django and RoR?
  - wubrr 3y ago
    LMGTFY
    - dventimihasura 3y ago
      Did you forget the link?
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
You are simply wrong. NodeJS is a popular server technology. I've implemented server APIs in NodeJS (both with and without GraphQL) in everything from large, well-known enterprises to brand new startups.
- sgarland 3y ago
  When I think “robust, performant language to serve traffic at scale,” my first instinct is definitely a frontend language. I despise NodeJS and its entire ecosystem. The number of incidents I’ve been dragged into which are directly linked to its use is too damn high.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  I could be wrong. That's one thing I'm trying to figure out. Setting that aside, like I said I don't really know that community, being mostly a Java developer. What're the go to database libraries? Is it sequelize, or something else?
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    There are tons of DB drivers/libraries for node. I'm personally a huge fan of slonik.
    - dventimihasura 3y ago
      sequelize seems to be much more popular than slonik. Is sequelize more or less the standard or at least market leader? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Slonik,Sequelize&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=S...
      - dventimihasura 3y ago
        Of course, Hibernate (Java) dwarfs them all. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Slonik,Sequelize,Hibernate&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=S...
      - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
        Sequelize is primarily an ORM. I won't get into a religious debate, but there are many good reasons for not wanting to use an ORM. Slonik is much newer, and is Postgres only. But there is a general trend seen in many different projects that support safe SQL execution using tagged template literals in JavaScript, which is a fantastic technology. Slonik was one of the first projects that went this route, but there are now many others. In general I think it's a mistake to look for a single "market leader" for node DB access. There are many high quality libraries that are favored by different teams for various reasons.
        3y ago
- dhosek 3y ago
  After a year-long job search, my sense was that (at least among hiring companies), TS was one of the most popular technologies and that was with a bias towards JVM-languages in my search.
  - dventimihasura 3y ago
    In San Francisco, currently Indeed has ~2600 jobs for "Java", ~600 for "Typescript".
wubrr 3y ago
> I highly doubt it. Not sure why you highly doubt it, when you admit 'I honestly don't know' and the truth is 20 seconds of googling away. backend web frameworks - https://github.com/vanodevium/node-framework-stars https://github.com/vanodevium/node-framework-stars ORMs - https://github.com/emanuelcasco/typescript-orm-benchmark https://github.com/emanuelcasco/typescript-orm-benchmark Not to mention pretty much every major cloud service (AWS, GCP, etc) has first-class JavaScript/TypeScript SDKs.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  I highly doubt it because I was talking about enterprise companies. I honestly have no idea how common node is in general, including other organizations, but when it comes to enterprise companies, I do have an idea. My idea is that node isn't very common. I'm even more confident in relative terms: however common it is, it's less common than Java and .Net are. As for cloud service SDKs, are you saying that many node backends rely on cloud SDKs?
  - wubrr 3y ago
    What's an 'enterprise company' lol? Many big banks have hundreds, if not thousands of nodejs-based backend services. Is Netflix[0] an 'enterprise company'? What about Walmart[1] ? [0] https://www.bellcorpstudio.com/blog/how-netflix-is-using-node-js https://www.bellcorpstudio.com/blog/how-netflix-is-using-nod... [1] https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/migrating-large-enterprise-to-nodejs-6c38523d2b33 https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/migrating-large-enterpr... > As for cloud service SDKs, are you saying that many node backends rely on cloud SDKs? Almost anything that uses a cloud service like DynamoDB is going to 'rely on cloud SDKs'... the language is irrelevant.
    - dventimihasura 3y ago
      Incidentally, I see no evidence in those links or elsewhere that either Walmart or Netflix is using node to meditate interactions with upstream data sources. What I do see elsewhere is the usual suspects: some databases and message queues, and then lots of Java https://blog.bytebytego.com/p/ep76-netflixs-tech-stack https://blog.bytebytego.com/p/ep76-netflixs-tech-stack
freedomben 3y ago
I've mainly worked in startups, but also worked with big enterprises as well during a stint at Red Hat, and yes, backends in Javascript are numerous and plentiful. Aside from Java in enterprise environments, it's by far the most common backend I've seen.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  I'm curious about that ecosystem, especially with regard to databased. I asked this elsewhere, but what're the main libraries for database access?
  - freedomben 3y ago
    For databases it varies quite a bit. Among people who like to use an ORM, TypeORM is the current thing that is in widespread use. For non-ORM people, most use pg or a similar thin-layer on top of raw SQL. In enterprise it was a lot of raw SQL as well, in large part because there was a lot of different DBs to support from db2 to SQL Server to Postgres
    - dventimihasura 3y ago
      It's dodgy finding the right search term, but at first blush it looks like sequelize is most popular, though the gap has narrowed considerably.
  - ahzhou 3y ago
    They fall under a few buckets: Driver: - node-postgres - node-mysql2 Query Builder / Other thin clients: - knex - kysely - slonik ORM: - TypeORM - MikroORM - Objection.js - DrizzleORM - Prisma (actually runs a separate binary)
akavi 3y ago
Notion (valuation 10 G$) and Asana (market cap 5 G$) are both nodejs down to the DB layer, to name two codebases I have personal experience with. Not quite Fortune 500 tier, but certainly not small potatoes.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't say that nobody wrote node backends.

calmoo 3y ago

Yes, node/TS backend APIs are extremely common.

dventimihasura 3y ago
Are they more common, or less common, than Django and RoR?
- wubrr 3y ago
  LMGTFY
  - dventimihasura 3y ago
    Did you forget the link?

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

You are simply wrong. NodeJS is a popular server technology. I've implemented server APIs in NodeJS (both with and without GraphQL) in everything from large, well-known enterprises to brand new startups.

sgarland 3y ago
When I think “robust, performant language to serve traffic at scale,” my first instinct is definitely a frontend language. I despise NodeJS and its entire ecosystem. The number of incidents I’ve been dragged into which are directly linked to its use is too damn high.
dventimihasura 3y ago
I could be wrong. That's one thing I'm trying to figure out. Setting that aside, like I said I don't really know that community, being mostly a Java developer. What're the go to database libraries? Is it sequelize, or something else?
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  There are tons of DB drivers/libraries for node. I'm personally a huge fan of slonik.
  - dventimihasura 3y ago
    sequelize seems to be much more popular than slonik. Is sequelize more or less the standard or at least market leader? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Slonik,Sequelize&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=S...
    - dventimihasura 3y ago
      Of course, Hibernate (Java) dwarfs them all. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Slonik,Sequelize,Hibernate&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=S...
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      Sequelize is primarily an ORM. I won't get into a religious debate, but there are many good reasons for not wanting to use an ORM. Slonik is much newer, and is Postgres only. But there is a general trend seen in many different projects that support safe SQL execution using tagged template literals in JavaScript, which is a fantastic technology. Slonik was one of the first projects that went this route, but there are now many others. In general I think it's a mistake to look for a single "market leader" for node DB access. There are many high quality libraries that are favored by different teams for various reasons.
      - 3y ago
dhosek 3y ago
After a year-long job search, my sense was that (at least among hiring companies), TS was one of the most popular technologies and that was with a bias towards JVM-languages in my search.
- dventimihasura 3y ago
  In San Francisco, currently Indeed has ~2600 jobs for "Java", ~600 for "Typescript".

wubrr 3y ago

> I highly doubt it. Not sure why you highly doubt it, when you admit 'I honestly don't know' and the truth is 20 seconds of googling away. backend web frameworks - https://github.com/vanodevium/node-framework-stars https://github.com/vanodevium/node-framework-stars ORMs - https://github.com/emanuelcasco/typescript-orm-benchmark https://github.com/emanuelcasco/typescript-orm-benchmark Not to mention pretty much every major cloud service (AWS, GCP, etc) has first-class JavaScript/TypeScript SDKs.

dventimihasura 3y ago
I highly doubt it because I was talking about enterprise companies. I honestly have no idea how common node is in general, including other organizations, but when it comes to enterprise companies, I do have an idea. My idea is that node isn't very common. I'm even more confident in relative terms: however common it is, it's less common than Java and .Net are. As for cloud service SDKs, are you saying that many node backends rely on cloud SDKs?
- wubrr 3y ago
  What's an 'enterprise company' lol? Many big banks have hundreds, if not thousands of nodejs-based backend services. Is Netflix[0] an 'enterprise company'? What about Walmart[1] ? [0] https://www.bellcorpstudio.com/blog/how-netflix-is-using-node-js https://www.bellcorpstudio.com/blog/how-netflix-is-using-nod... [1] https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/migrating-large-enterprise-to-nodejs-6c38523d2b33 https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/migrating-large-enterpr... > As for cloud service SDKs, are you saying that many node backends rely on cloud SDKs? Almost anything that uses a cloud service like DynamoDB is going to 'rely on cloud SDKs'... the language is irrelevant.
  - dventimihasura 3y ago
    Incidentally, I see no evidence in those links or elsewhere that either Walmart or Netflix is using node to meditate interactions with upstream data sources. What I do see elsewhere is the usual suspects: some databases and message queues, and then lots of Java https://blog.bytebytego.com/p/ep76-netflixs-tech-stack https://blog.bytebytego.com/p/ep76-netflixs-tech-stack

freedomben 3y ago

I've mainly worked in startups, but also worked with big enterprises as well during a stint at Red Hat, and yes, backends in Javascript are numerous and plentiful. Aside from Java in enterprise environments, it's by far the most common backend I've seen.

dventimihasura 3y ago
I'm curious about that ecosystem, especially with regard to databased. I asked this elsewhere, but what're the main libraries for database access?
- freedomben 3y ago
  For databases it varies quite a bit. Among people who like to use an ORM, TypeORM is the current thing that is in widespread use. For non-ORM people, most use pg or a similar thin-layer on top of raw SQL. In enterprise it was a lot of raw SQL as well, in large part because there was a lot of different DBs to support from db2 to SQL Server to Postgres
  - dventimihasura 3y ago
    It's dodgy finding the right search term, but at first blush it looks like sequelize is most popular, though the gap has narrowed considerably.
- ahzhou 3y ago
  They fall under a few buckets: Driver: - node-postgres - node-mysql2 Query Builder / Other thin clients: - knex - kysely - slonik ORM: - TypeORM - MikroORM - Objection.js - DrizzleORM - Prisma (actually runs a separate binary)

akavi 3y ago

Notion (valuation 10 G$) and Asana (market cap 5 G$) are both nodejs down to the DB layer, to name two codebases I have personal experience with. Not quite Fortune 500 tier, but certainly not small potatoes.

dventimihasura 3y ago
Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't say that nobody wrote node backends.