That's really all about how you structure things. If you're building small, distributed, API-oriented applications -- it's really very easy to re-write your in

That's really all about how you structure things. If you're building small, distributed, API-oriented applications -- it's really very easy to re-write your infrastructure. If you're building large monolithic applications, with in-band communication only, you're right, it is pretty tough. The "formal education" piece is a little rough though. Count me among the developers working with Node.JS and a university degree.