3 ms·

It's hardly surprising that there's a huge burst of growth when a language and its package repository first takes off. I'm sure if we looked at the 4 year perio

by autarch 14y ago

It's hardly surprising that there's a huge burst of growth when a language and its package repository first takes off. I'm sure if we looked at the 4 year periods where each of Perl, Python, and Ruby were hitting their stride we'd see similar numbers. It's nice that node.js is succeeding, but it's hardly changing the face of open source. It's treading a very well-trodden path blazed by Perl starting about 28 years ago.

RKoutnik 14y ago
Looking at the numbers posted in the article, there are almost as many npm packages published in four years of Node than there are Python packages published in 22. I think just saying "hey, they're new, it'll level off" is a great disservice to the Node guys who made this happen. Truth is, npm is growing (in terms of # of packages) faster than any community like this ever.
- oscargrouch 14y ago
  True but, this may also be a "technology generation" issue.. i mean.. compared with the 90's .. there are much more people interested and with hands-on computer development than ever before.. And this is all about the internet boom.. so it happens that the technology of the moment now is javascript and consequently node.js.. its natural that a great part of this bigger labor force ends up doing node.js stuff.. to see this numbers clearly we need to see the net effect, the number of the whole development community in comparison.. it's not fair to compare 2010's with the 90's.. what was the audience for perl back then? now whats the audience for node.js and all the other players?
  - RKoutnik 14y ago
    There are other factors at play here. Node has access to a bigger audience, but it's an audience that already has mature toys like Python/Perl/etc. Node not only has to create a great ecosystem, it has to create a better one than what already exists (which is the central premise of the article). Simply saying "Welp, there's more people on the internet now" is ignoring the excellent competition for hackers that Node (or any other new tech with grandiose ambitions) has.
- pekk 14y ago
  There need to be more packages, because you are starting at a lower level than a "batteries-included" language

by autarch 14y ago

RKoutnik 14y ago

Looking at the numbers posted in the article, there are almost as many npm packages published in four years of Node than there are Python packages published in 22. I think just saying "hey, they're new, it'll level off" is a great disservice to the Node guys who made this happen. Truth is, npm is growing (in terms of # of packages) faster than any community like this ever.

oscargrouch 14y ago
True but, this may also be a "technology generation" issue.. i mean.. compared with the 90's .. there are much more people interested and with hands-on computer development than ever before.. And this is all about the internet boom.. so it happens that the technology of the moment now is javascript and consequently node.js.. its natural that a great part of this bigger labor force ends up doing node.js stuff.. to see this numbers clearly we need to see the net effect, the number of the whole development community in comparison.. it's not fair to compare 2010's with the 90's.. what was the audience for perl back then? now whats the audience for node.js and all the other players?
- RKoutnik 14y ago
  There are other factors at play here. Node has access to a bigger audience, but it's an audience that already has mature toys like Python/Perl/etc. Node not only has to create a great ecosystem, it has to create a better one than what already exists (which is the central premise of the article). Simply saying "Welp, there's more people on the internet now" is ignoring the excellent competition for hackers that Node (or any other new tech with grandiose ambitions) has.
pekk 14y ago
There need to be more packages, because you are starting at a lower level than a "batteries-included" language