2 ms·

Node as a technology is misunderstood. Most people from other languages hear that it is javascript and scoff without digging into the source or into libuv. As

by niggler 14y ago

Node as a technology is misunderstood. Most people from other languages hear that it is javascript and scoff without digging into the source or into libuv. As a platform it made a certain set of trade offs which make it ideal for certain use cases, but some zealots see it as a panacea and suggest using node for everything under the sun. (Not to mention the general arrogance of some vocal proponents -- the core people are relatively humbled but there are a lot of pseudo rock star developers who think its cool to write JS instead of using the best tools for the job) The traditional complaints of javascript were summarized well by Crockford http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html Most of the people writing in JavaScript are not programmers. They lack the training and discipline to write good programs. JavaScript has so much expressive power that they are able to do useful things in it, anyway. This has given JavaScript a reputation of being strictly for the amateurs, that it is not suitable for professional programming. This is simply not the case. reply

jmspring 14y ago
Node inherits the warts of Javascript. Node the framework is quite good and handles abstracting out threading/async incredibly well. Node the community is still young, but growing. On two recent projects, I tried two different http auth related modules (digest auth). Both had been active for awhile and recently updated (within a month or two). Yet, despite digest auth being pretty established/spec'd out, had some serious flaws (I didn't have the time to offer back feedback, but it is on my list to submit patches). Friends have mentioned similar, though more complicated issues w/ socket.io for production use, one of THE modules used to highlight Node. Node, JS, and the node environment have their warts, just approach them knowing that. Don't advocate them as awesome rockstar tech.
- niggler 14y ago
  Outside of some very low-level modules that wrap C calls, most of the node modules are either very specialized or incomplete. I definitely find it easier in most cases to just rewrite functionality than to fallback on the recommended modules. Fortunately the C++ API isn't too far abstracted from the V8 API
  - jmspring 14y ago
    Agreed. Node itself is pretty neat. But it isn't the end all/be all of server-side solutions -- modules/stdlibs being my first point of contention. I agree about wrappers to native code and have had to do such.

by niggler 14y ago

jmspring 14y ago

Node inherits the warts of Javascript. Node the framework is quite good and handles abstracting out threading/async incredibly well. Node the community is still young, but growing. On two recent projects, I tried two different http auth related modules (digest auth). Both had been active for awhile and recently updated (within a month or two). Yet, despite digest auth being pretty established/spec'd out, had some serious flaws (I didn't have the time to offer back feedback, but it is on my list to submit patches). Friends have mentioned similar, though more complicated issues w/ socket.io for production use, one of THE modules used to highlight Node. Node, JS, and the node environment have their warts, just approach them knowing that. Don't advocate them as awesome rockstar tech.

niggler 14y ago
Outside of some very low-level modules that wrap C calls, most of the node modules are either very specialized or incomplete. I definitely find it easier in most cases to just rewrite functionality than to fallback on the recommended modules. Fortunately the C++ API isn't too far abstracted from the V8 API
- jmspring 14y ago
  Agreed. Node itself is pretty neat. But it isn't the end all/be all of server-side solutions -- modules/stdlibs being my first point of contention. I agree about wrappers to native code and have had to do such.