7 ms·

Node/V8 is a beast and will dominate web development in few years. EDIT: Downvote me, I don't care.

by tferris 14y ago

zokier 14y ago
That'd be true if performance would trump productivity in web development. On the other hand, I don't see a lot of web-apps written in C...
- tferris 14y ago
  Give Node s try before judging, Node gives you same productivity as other popular languages used for web development but with C-class performance
  - newman314 14y ago
    Ummm, where are you getting that node has C-class perf?
    - NuZZ 14y ago
      A quick google [1] results in this article. Look for JS:V8 - Node runs off of that. Most of the graphs I glanced at show it's very close to C. I glance because I've properly checked out other benchmarks which confirm this. [1] http://attractivechaos.github.com/plb/ http://attractivechaos.github.com/plb/
pestaa 14y ago
If the web development industry moves from PHP to JavaScript as the main backend language... well, from quality perspective nothing will change. IMO.
- espadrine 14y ago
  If one company gave you a PHP job, and another a JS backend job, and that'd be all you got, would you flip a coin to pick one? Or is this a way to say that you feel more satisfied with your work in Python than with your work in node?
  - pestaa 14y ago
    This is my way to say several points: - If the majority of our industry can make the switch to JavaScript, they'll ruin it in terms of average code quality. - Even good, idiomatic JavaScript code sucks for reasons inherent in the language. - I wish people wrote just good enough Python or Erlang or Haskell or whatever code instead of excellent PHP/JavaScript. So yes, I treat PHP and JavaScript backend jobs equally. [Edit: grammar.]
    - rgbrgb 14y ago
      >> Even good, idiomatic JavaScript code sucks for reasons inherent in the language. Care to elaborate?
      - dguaraglia 14y ago
        I'll just throw a couple pet-peeves of mine in here: - No proper packaging/namespacing - Completely idiosyncratic results when operating with mixed data types (10 + 'p' = '10p', 7/0 = 'infinity' and all that) - Variables default to a pseudo-global scope - Prototype based 'inheritance', while cool, is just cumbersome and inelegant compared to languages that have proper object oriented language constructs - Take all those and a syntax that was partially taken from Java, and you end up with verbose code jumble that is way more difficult to read than equivalent Python/Ruby (even C#)
        tferris 14y ago
        - No proper packaging/namespacing http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html - Completely idiosyncratic results when operating with mixed data types (10 + 'p' = '10p', 7/0 = 'infinity' and all that) I wouldn't call it idiosyncratic but just use Underscore and you are fine. - Variables default to a pseudo-global scope just use 'var' when declaring them - Prototype based 'inheritance', while cool, is just cumbersome and inelegant compared to languages that have proper object oriented language constructs Any OO is cumbersome and should be used only when it makes sense. If you don't like prototype based inheritance you can still use traditional OO with extra libs. - Take all those and a syntax that was partially taken from Java, and you end up with verbose code jumble that is way more difficult to read than equivalent Python/Ruby (even C#) Sorry to disagree again but there are many people preferring bracket based languages over those omitting them. You can quickly identify blocks and navigate through the source. And JS isn't verbose like Java. JS has its quirks like any other languages but these are just very few and you get tons of amenities in return.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  While JS is quite flawed, it's nowhere near as bad as PHP. If JS kills all usage of PHP, the world will be a better place.
malkarouri 14y ago
I actually don't think so, not that I have downvoted you. V8 was such a breakthrough at the time, it blew off the competition. Since then, many competitors have picked up the tricks and as shown in the bennchmark, uWSGI holds its own against Node/V8. As a result, the Node/V8 combination is not going to be so dominant in a few years in terms of performance. Another factors will come into play such as the language and the libraries available (the ecosystem). I would find it much harder to predict the dominance of the Noode/V8 ecosystem compared to that of Python or Java in a few years' time.
- jessedhillon 14y ago
  I think this is it exactly. The pace at which infrastructure, support and tools in "competing" ecosystems can be improved will outpace the rate at which people's miss can be changed about JS. There are 10-15 years of the language's, most of which were a Very Bad time for it's reputation, and only recently has the community of developers begun to land on solid development principles -- and you can hardly call those universal. I think most people fear callback spaghetti when they think of diving into someone else's JS code.
lucian1900 14y ago
V8 and PyPy are similarly fast runtimes, but this benchmark tests libraries against each other. Not particularly relevant, especially as at least two of them are known to have slow IO.
- tferris 14y ago
  As good as pypy is it's no replacement for python yet. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12867263/why-wasnt-pypy-included-in-standard-python http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12867263/why-wasnt-pypy-i...

Node/V8 is a beast and will dominate web development in few years. EDIT: Downvote me, I don't care.

by tferris 14y ago

Node/V8 is a beast and will dominate web development in few years. EDIT: Downvote me, I don't care.

That'd be true if performance would trump productivity in web development. On the other hand, I don't see a lot of web-apps written in C...

tferris 14y ago
Give Node s try before judging, Node gives you same productivity as other popular languages used for web development but with C-class performance
- newman314 14y ago
  Ummm, where are you getting that node has C-class perf?
  - NuZZ 14y ago
    A quick google [1] results in this article. Look for JS:V8 - Node runs off of that. Most of the graphs I glanced at show it's very close to C. I glance because I've properly checked out other benchmarks which confirm this. [1] http://attractivechaos.github.com/plb/ http://attractivechaos.github.com/plb/

pestaa 14y ago

If the web development industry moves from PHP to JavaScript as the main backend language... well, from quality perspective nothing will change. IMO.

espadrine 14y ago
If one company gave you a PHP job, and another a JS backend job, and that'd be all you got, would you flip a coin to pick one? Or is this a way to say that you feel more satisfied with your work in Python than with your work in node?
- pestaa 14y ago
  This is my way to say several points: - If the majority of our industry can make the switch to JavaScript, they'll ruin it in terms of average code quality. - Even good, idiomatic JavaScript code sucks for reasons inherent in the language. - I wish people wrote just good enough Python or Erlang or Haskell or whatever code instead of excellent PHP/JavaScript. So yes, I treat PHP and JavaScript backend jobs equally. [Edit: grammar.]
  - rgbrgb 14y ago
    >> Even good, idiomatic JavaScript code sucks for reasons inherent in the language. Care to elaborate?
    - dguaraglia 14y ago
      I'll just throw a couple pet-peeves of mine in here: - No proper packaging/namespacing - Completely idiosyncratic results when operating with mixed data types (10 + 'p' = '10p', 7/0 = 'infinity' and all that) - Variables default to a pseudo-global scope - Prototype based 'inheritance', while cool, is just cumbersome and inelegant compared to languages that have proper object oriented language constructs - Take all those and a syntax that was partially taken from Java, and you end up with verbose code jumble that is way more difficult to read than equivalent Python/Ruby (even C#)
      - tferris 14y ago
        - No proper packaging/namespacing http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html - Completely idiosyncratic results when operating with mixed data types (10 + 'p' = '10p', 7/0 = 'infinity' and all that) I wouldn't call it idiosyncratic but just use Underscore and you are fine. - Variables default to a pseudo-global scope just use 'var' when declaring them - Prototype based 'inheritance', while cool, is just cumbersome and inelegant compared to languages that have proper object oriented language constructs Any OO is cumbersome and should be used only when it makes sense. If you don't like prototype based inheritance you can still use traditional OO with extra libs. - Take all those and a syntax that was partially taken from Java, and you end up with verbose code jumble that is way more difficult to read than equivalent Python/Ruby (even C#) Sorry to disagree again but there are many people preferring bracket based languages over those omitting them. You can quickly identify blocks and navigate through the source. And JS isn't verbose like Java. JS has its quirks like any other languages but these are just very few and you get tons of amenities in return.
lucian1900 14y ago
While JS is quite flawed, it's nowhere near as bad as PHP. If JS kills all usage of PHP, the world will be a better place.

malkarouri 14y ago

I actually don't think so, not that I have downvoted you. V8 was such a breakthrough at the time, it blew off the competition. Since then, many competitors have picked up the tricks and as shown in the bennchmark, uWSGI holds its own against Node/V8. As a result, the Node/V8 combination is not going to be so dominant in a few years in terms of performance. Another factors will come into play such as the language and the libraries available (the ecosystem). I would find it much harder to predict the dominance of the Noode/V8 ecosystem compared to that of Python or Java in a few years' time.

jessedhillon 14y ago
I think this is it exactly. The pace at which infrastructure, support and tools in "competing" ecosystems can be improved will outpace the rate at which people's miss can be changed about JS. There are 10-15 years of the language's, most of which were a Very Bad time for it's reputation, and only recently has the community of developers begun to land on solid development principles -- and you can hardly call those universal. I think most people fear callback spaghetti when they think of diving into someone else's JS code.

lucian1900 14y ago

V8 and PyPy are similarly fast runtimes, but this benchmark tests libraries against each other. Not particularly relevant, especially as at least two of them are known to have slow IO.

tferris 14y ago
As good as pypy is it's no replacement for python yet. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12867263/why-wasnt-pypy-included-in-standard-python http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12867263/why-wasnt-pypy-i...