
Node.js coming to Windows, Azure with official Microsoft support - ignifero
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/nodejs-coming-to-windows-azure-with-official-microsoft-support.ars
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chrisbuc
This is great news as it should raise adoption amongst Windows users (and
customers who have their infrastructure based on windows systems)

My only worry is that hopefully MS won't take it, customise it heavily, and we
end up with two competing, slightly incompatible implementations.

Be strong, Joyent.

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ignifero
I dont believe Joyent has vested interests in Node.js, even though they are
supporting the project. They are running a cloud hosting service (and my
joyent servers don't even have node.js installed).

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bjg
Part of Joyent's product line is the Node.js Smart Machine.

<http://www.joyentcloud.com/products/smart-appliances/>

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1sdfsd
I think everyone is overreacting to this announcement, they are just lending a
hand with IOCP to Ryan as he finishes up his abstraction layer in 0.5.x. Just
like they denoted some offifical resources to PHP, Ruby, Python, jQuery etc..

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chrisbuc
For me, it's more the fact that MS have officially acknowledged the existence
of node.js within a windows platform that matters, rather than any particular
work they may or may not be doing.

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1sdfsd
Yeah that makes sense, the 43 media reports out there at the moment are just
silly, if you look at github the abstraction layer introduced in 0.5 was
pretty far along, bringing on some inside help is obviously a good thing but
FFS lets no overdrama this.

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hugorodgerbrown
Given MSFT's history of doing their own thing rather than supporting the
community alternative, this seems like a really strange decision; particularly
as they have the potential to build a great competitor product using .net
async features ([http://lorgonblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/f-async-on-the-
se...](http://lorgonblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/f-async-on-the-server-
side/)).

Building JScript in parallel to JavaScript back in the 90s was a dumb idea,
but forgoing their own toolset to support node.js is equally misguided. They
should concentrate on educating .net developers on how to compete with the
non-msft development community using the .net platform to bring them to
productivity / toolset parity, and fostering open-source .net projects.

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pasbesoin
I didn't use it, but I recall that some years ago, MS's JScript was considered
by some to be quite useful -- until the divergences became an issue and/or MS
whacked it in favor of pushing VBScript or whatever.

MS has a history with JS beyond just annoying people with IE.

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chrisjsmith
Now no-one can afford node.js too!

(Azure is extremely expensive compared to say EC2 feature-wise).

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upthedale
It's and apples and oranges comparison though. For those that like their
acronyms, Amazon's service is infrastructure (IaaS) whereas Azure abstracts
more aware providing a platfrom to build on (PaaS)

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leerpm
Though they advertise & promote Azure as PaaS, you can actually use it for
IaaS. They offer a Virtual Machine role which is the rough equivalent of an
EC2 instance. I think most folks go the PaaS route though.

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balakk
VMRole still isnt IaaS, since it doesn't have the equivalent of EC2's EBS
backed instance storage. The Azure drive is close, but still not the same. So
if you need persistence on the instance storage, you'll still have issues.

I hear it's coming though.

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keithnoizu
Node.js is that some new erlang rip-off.

