6 ms·

Io.js community thoughts on reconciliation

89 points by yvoschaap2 12y ago

wesleytodd 12y ago
This title should be changed......
bsimpson 12y ago
The title should be something to the effect of "io.js contributors weighing pros/cons of Node.js merge" Reconciling makes it sounds like they are merging. From the posts I've read in that thread, it seems like they're as far apart as ever.
- ante_annum 12y ago
  Most of the discussion seems to be "we shouldn't reconcile".
- sctb 12y ago
  Thanks, we updated the title.
- nailer 12y ago
  If we use the string 'dang' in a comment, does he appear?
otoburb 12y ago
Despite the submitted title, the ticket history seems more like a discussion soliciting additional feedback, implying that a decision has not yet been definitively made. Is that accurate? Or is the weight of the io.js community on-board and we're only reading a vocal minority's opinion in the github ticket?
- doomspork 12y ago
  You are correct, no decision has been made as of yet.
thom_nic 12y ago
I rather like the idea of io.js being a faster moving fork of node. Hopefully a "reconciliation" would mean essentially re-naming the projects to something like "node stable" and "node edge" but maintaining both, since depending on your needs you might choose one or the other.
- jeswin 12y ago
  But that's not what it is. Io.is uses the currently supported version of v8 while node doesn't; so it wins on features AND stability.
  - swsieber 12y ago
    That's not necessarily true. Some of the stability comes from the bindings and interface between v8 and node. So updating v8 could temporarily decrease stability.
primitivesuave 12y ago
> Joyent have squandered much of the trust and respect they once had and they continue to frustrate even in their involvement in the AB and Foundation discussions. Does their re-involvement in this community have an impact or do we imagine they will once again become the constructive force they used to be or perhaps they will be neutralised in a way that everyone's happy? What's this all about?
- Osiris 12y ago
  Joyent practically stopped development on node.js. They promised a 0.12 stable release repeatedly over 2 years before it was finally released. Joyent also has gotten into squabbles with StrongLoop over contributions to node.
  - iends 12y ago
    It reminds me a lot of embrace, extend, extinguish employed by Microsoft. Once they got platform adoption and popularity, it's like they stopped investing in the platform. At least that's my perception as an outside user.
    - jordanlev 12y ago
      eh, this sounds more like an "embrace and ignore" situation (like IE6). The "extend" was about adding new features that were incompatible with the existing standard (which would in turn lead to the existing standard being "extinguished" because MS was so dominant that whatever they pushed would become the new defacto standard over whatever they "embraced" in the first place).
ffn 12y ago
Politics and "what it may mean for the future" talks aside, are there any API / performance / engineering differences between io and node today? I mean, there's a lot of talk regarding why joyent is bad or how joyent did nothing wrong, but from a js user's point of view, I'm rather more interested in the tangible non-human differences in node and io.
- franciscop 12y ago
  As far as I know (I'm quite new in Node), io.js wants to join the ES6 pretty soon, and most of the developers have gone to io.js from Node.js. So, while there might not be a big enough difference right now, if they continue separated there will be soon enough.
  - sigzero 12y ago
    Divergence is what we are worried about. I am hoping they come back together with the io implementation being the bleeding edge going back into node stable.
    - iends 12y ago
      io.js isn't very bleeding edge though. That's just FUD.
    - franciscop 12y ago
      Not so sure about that being the best way. I agree that it would be the best for not confusing short-term. However, there are also many problems with that approach, mainly that Node.js is not of the community, it is from Joyent. While this works great in some cases (Linux), there were apparently many problems with Node.js. I think the best would be: 1. Joyent giving the name to io.js so they can keep developing Node.js at a fast speed while keeping the name to avoid confusion. 2. As 1 is highly unlikely, IMO the best next thing is for io.js to gain market and popularity as fast as possible.
  - malandrew 12y ago
    Huh? No, io.js is a fork of joyent/node by many original core contributors. io.js has more es6 support since it's based on a newer version of v8. Development on joyent/node slowed to a crawl and now the NodeFoundation is begging the io.js developers to return. If things remain separate, joyent/node will probably not progress much more and eventually everyone will view io.js as the "next" version of node.
ZenoArrow 12y ago
Reading through the posts, this one struck me as the best solution... "Personally, what I would love to see is io.js take the Node name and handle all of the development through the community. Joyent could then select specific releases that they will support as LTS for enterprises, complete with the requisite paid support packages. That seems like it might be a scenario where everyone could win." Not only is it a practical solution that fixes problems on both sides, there are examples of similar arrangements that have worked out well, such as the symbiotic relationship between RHEL and Fedora.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  That's what happened with GCC and EGCS. Tired from GCC's slow development, some developers created the EGCS fork. After a couple years, the EGCS fork became the official FSF GCC. A detailed history is here: http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_development.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_d...
  - ZenoArrow 12y ago
    Interesting, didn't know that, thanks cpeterso.
amelius 12y ago
I wonder why they (both node.js and io.js) chose to use processes instead of threads to do multiprocessing, because with threads you can have at least structural sharing of immutable data structures.
- phpnode 12y ago
  There is an open pull request that adds "workers" to io.js, uses threads - https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1159 https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1159
  - amelius 12y ago
    Ok, good to know, thanks.
hello_moto 12y ago
Node seems to have tons of controversies around it ever since its inception. As much as I would love to enjoy Node, I can't. It's just too much drama around it. Strongloop, Joyent, none of these companies are guiding the Node community in the right direction (the Node community itself probably are too full of "strong opinionated" individuals that caused further drama). Strongloop is basically a bunch of people with money, hired a few Node core contributors to get street creds (of course the Node core contribs people would be more than happy to get paid and be the face of a company... y'know, ego and money) and try to be the RedHat of Node (oh, they bought NodeFly and laid everybody off ). Joyent saw "gold" in Node but it's quite clear they're having hard time to capitalize their first-mover advantages. Maybe Accounting still doesn't like the idea of paying a bunch of people with money to support an "open source project" and figure out how to make money later on. Hence we're seeing how Joyent just didn't own NodeJS and leave everybody to dust with tons of contributions... if you want to own an OSS project, invest tons of resources, make sure you own a large percentage of the codebase, deliver tons of new and exciting features, put lots of marketing behind it, and make sure people have hard time to "catch up" thus creating an invisible barrier to enter. Hire the smart ones that still can somehow understand the codebase and contribute effectively. Another way is by providing sub-par documentation for the public to contribute, of course that's more "evil" than making it hard for individuals to get to know the codebase... Now we have IO.js, a "community" driven with individuals who "work for corporation with Node interest" behind them...(those APM companies and Node-based service providers wanting to be the recognized leader in Node). Let's be honest (and be real): Node is positioned to be the next popular framework after Rails. It's not hard to see why there are so much politics around it. The difference is that Rails has DHH as BDFL and he didn't want to make money out of Rails (if you don't count public speaking...) and Node has no BDFL...
- M2Ys4U 12y ago
  >The difference is that Rails has DHH as BDFL and he didn't want to make money out of Rails (if you don't count public speaking...) and Node has no BDFL... Node has had a few BDFLs in its lifetime: Ryan Dahl (2009-2012), Isaac Schlueter (2012-2014) and TJ Fontaine (2014 onwards) Almost all of Node's problems stem from Joyent. They're just incompetent at stewarding the Node project.

89 points by yvoschaap2 12y ago

This title should be changed......

The title should be something to the effect of "io.js contributors weighing pros/cons of Node.js merge" Reconciling makes it sounds like they are merging. From the posts I've read in that thread, it seems like they're as far apart as ever.

ante_annum 12y ago
Most of the discussion seems to be "we shouldn't reconcile".
sctb 12y ago
Thanks, we updated the title.
nailer 12y ago
If we use the string 'dang' in a comment, does he appear?

otoburb 12y ago

Despite the submitted title, the ticket history seems more like a discussion soliciting additional feedback, implying that a decision has not yet been definitively made. Is that accurate? Or is the weight of the io.js community on-board and we're only reading a vocal minority's opinion in the github ticket?

doomspork 12y ago
You are correct, no decision has been made as of yet.

thom_nic 12y ago

I rather like the idea of io.js being a faster moving fork of node. Hopefully a "reconciliation" would mean essentially re-naming the projects to something like "node stable" and "node edge" but maintaining both, since depending on your needs you might choose one or the other.

jeswin 12y ago
But that's not what it is. Io.is uses the currently supported version of v8 while node doesn't; so it wins on features AND stability.
- swsieber 12y ago
  That's not necessarily true. Some of the stability comes from the bindings and interface between v8 and node. So updating v8 could temporarily decrease stability.

primitivesuave 12y ago

> Joyent have squandered much of the trust and respect they once had and they continue to frustrate even in their involvement in the AB and Foundation discussions. Does their re-involvement in this community have an impact or do we imagine they will once again become the constructive force they used to be or perhaps they will be neutralised in a way that everyone's happy? What's this all about?

Osiris 12y ago
Joyent practically stopped development on node.js. They promised a 0.12 stable release repeatedly over 2 years before it was finally released. Joyent also has gotten into squabbles with StrongLoop over contributions to node.
- iends 12y ago
  It reminds me a lot of embrace, extend, extinguish employed by Microsoft. Once they got platform adoption and popularity, it's like they stopped investing in the platform. At least that's my perception as an outside user.
  - jordanlev 12y ago
    eh, this sounds more like an "embrace and ignore" situation (like IE6). The "extend" was about adding new features that were incompatible with the existing standard (which would in turn lead to the existing standard being "extinguished" because MS was so dominant that whatever they pushed would become the new defacto standard over whatever they "embraced" in the first place).

ffn 12y ago

Politics and "what it may mean for the future" talks aside, are there any API / performance / engineering differences between io and node today? I mean, there's a lot of talk regarding why joyent is bad or how joyent did nothing wrong, but from a js user's point of view, I'm rather more interested in the tangible non-human differences in node and io.

franciscop 12y ago
As far as I know (I'm quite new in Node), io.js wants to join the ES6 pretty soon, and most of the developers have gone to io.js from Node.js. So, while there might not be a big enough difference right now, if they continue separated there will be soon enough.
- sigzero 12y ago
  Divergence is what we are worried about. I am hoping they come back together with the io implementation being the bleeding edge going back into node stable.
  - iends 12y ago
    io.js isn't very bleeding edge though. That's just FUD.
  - franciscop 12y ago
    Not so sure about that being the best way. I agree that it would be the best for not confusing short-term. However, there are also many problems with that approach, mainly that Node.js is not of the community, it is from Joyent. While this works great in some cases (Linux), there were apparently many problems with Node.js. I think the best would be: 1. Joyent giving the name to io.js so they can keep developing Node.js at a fast speed while keeping the name to avoid confusion. 2. As 1 is highly unlikely, IMO the best next thing is for io.js to gain market and popularity as fast as possible.
- malandrew 12y ago
  Huh? No, io.js is a fork of joyent/node by many original core contributors. io.js has more es6 support since it's based on a newer version of v8. Development on joyent/node slowed to a crawl and now the NodeFoundation is begging the io.js developers to return. If things remain separate, joyent/node will probably not progress much more and eventually everyone will view io.js as the "next" version of node.

ZenoArrow 12y ago

Reading through the posts, this one struck me as the best solution... "Personally, what I would love to see is io.js take the Node name and handle all of the development through the community. Joyent could then select specific releases that they will support as LTS for enterprises, complete with the requisite paid support packages. That seems like it might be a scenario where everyone could win." Not only is it a practical solution that fixes problems on both sides, there are examples of similar arrangements that have worked out well, such as the symbiotic relationship between RHEL and Fedora.

cpeterso 12y ago
That's what happened with GCC and EGCS. Tired from GCC's slow development, some developers created the EGCS fork. After a couple years, the EGCS fork became the official FSF GCC. A detailed history is here: http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_development.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_d...
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  Interesting, didn't know that, thanks cpeterso.

amelius 12y ago

I wonder why they (both node.js and io.js) chose to use processes instead of threads to do multiprocessing, because with threads you can have at least structural sharing of immutable data structures.

phpnode 12y ago
There is an open pull request that adds "workers" to io.js, uses threads - https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1159 https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1159
- amelius 12y ago
  Ok, good to know, thanks.

hello_moto 12y ago

Node seems to have tons of controversies around it ever since its inception. As much as I would love to enjoy Node, I can't. It's just too much drama around it. Strongloop, Joyent, none of these companies are guiding the Node community in the right direction (the Node community itself probably are too full of "strong opinionated" individuals that caused further drama). Strongloop is basically a bunch of people with money, hired a few Node core contributors to get street creds (of course the Node core contribs people would be more than happy to get paid and be the face of a company... y'know, ego and money) and try to be the RedHat of Node (oh, they bought NodeFly and laid everybody off ). Joyent saw "gold" in Node but it's quite clear they're having hard time to capitalize their first-mover advantages. Maybe Accounting still doesn't like the idea of paying a bunch of people with money to support an "open source project" and figure out how to make money later on. Hence we're seeing how Joyent just didn't own NodeJS and leave everybody to dust with tons of contributions... if you want to own an OSS project, invest tons of resources, make sure you own a large percentage of the codebase, deliver tons of new and exciting features, put lots of marketing behind it, and make sure people have hard time to "catch up" thus creating an invisible barrier to enter. Hire the smart ones that still can somehow understand the codebase and contribute effectively. Another way is by providing sub-par documentation for the public to contribute, of course that's more "evil" than making it hard for individuals to get to know the codebase... Now we have IO.js, a "community" driven with individuals who "work for corporation with Node interest" behind them...(those APM companies and Node-based service providers wanting to be the recognized leader in Node). Let's be honest (and be real): Node is positioned to be the next popular framework after Rails. It's not hard to see why there are so much politics around it. The difference is that Rails has DHH as BDFL and he didn't want to make money out of Rails (if you don't count public speaking...) and Node has no BDFL...

M2Ys4U 12y ago
>The difference is that Rails has DHH as BDFL and he didn't want to make money out of Rails (if you don't count public speaking...) and Node has no BDFL... Node has had a few BDFLs in its lifetime: Ryan Dahl (2009-2012), Isaac Schlueter (2012-2014) and TJ Fontaine (2014 onwards) Almost all of Node's problems stem from Joyent. They're just incompetent at stewarding the Node project.