
Interview with Mikeal Rogers of the Node.js Foundation - okket
https://thenewstack.io/open-source-profile-mikeal-rogers-node-js/
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athenot
I generally like node.js and I'm no fan of Java for many reasons. But Java is
a perfect match for many large corporate cultures because it espouses a
similar abstract/bureaucratic mindset. I have a very hard time seeing node.js
displacing Java in that environment.

~~~
mercer
Perhaps with TypeScript (And Microsoft as a big corporate name behind it) Node
is a little more acceptable?

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stonith
"We are now at about 8 million estimated users and still growing at about 100
percent a year. We haven’t passed Java in terms of users yet, but by this time
next year at the current growth, we will surpass."

It's not clear whether 'user' means node.js developer or someone deploying the
software or something else altogether. It's also not stated where this number
came from, and I'd imagine it would be fairly difficult to measure anyway.

~~~
frozenport
On the other side 16 million Java users sounds like a small amount. In the
advertising literature you see claims of billions of devices running the
environment, and the language is used is used in a few hundred million more
embedded devices.

~~~
mgkimsal
It would only take a handful of users at one phone manufacturer to get a JRE
on millions of devices. It was this sort of "billions of devices!" claim years
ago that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Going back to early/mid 2000s, that
hype was all over the place, but could you install your own code on those
devices? Generally not. Having a JRE on 500 million set-top boxes does very
little for the Java developer population's ability to deploy code - it only
help(s|ed) the developers employed at the set-top box company.

~~~
coldtea
It's also that those devices are generally devices noone cares about.
Featurephones, set-top boxes, etc.

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bcg1
This feels like deja vu, except that I can remember that we've heard all this
before. Still waiting since 2008 or so for Ruby and Rails to eat Java's lunch.

I have no problem with Ruby or Node BTW, but let's be real.

~~~
abritinthebay
He's mostly speaking in terms of momentum. The Ruby talk was _vastly_
overstated - mostly because it was too early to say that.

With Node the trend has been clear for a while and if current pace keeps up
he'll be 100% correct. Even if it slows down it's looking like that would be
the case in a couple of years at worst.

That's not a knock on Java either way (tho I'm no fan) it's a testament to
Node's growth.

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xkcd-sucks
Having worked with nodejs for a few years, it's turned out to be pretty okay
for prototyping web apps. But, developing these prototypes into robust
software and maintaining them is terrible. My opinion is that a proliferation
of low-quality, poorly maintained modules-- the "more packages in the Node.js
ecosystem than any other"\-- makes node unsuitable for production. It does
help you "develop faster," but only for a few months per project. After that
it's backfilling other people's shoddy code and diagnosing breaking changes
between module patch versions.

Also, the proliferation of incompatible JS language features, stacks of build
systems etc. doesn't make things any easier.

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phd514
If this turns out to be true, I hope it would be only because other JVM-based
languages such as Kotlin and Clojure were taking market share from Java, not
because Node.js were continuing to increase in popularity.

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placeybordeaux
The new title "Interview with Mikeal Rogers of the Node.js Foundation" is way
better than the previous one that suggested that node.js is going to surpass
java in terms of number of users, without defining their terms.

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erikpukinskis
Very sad. The "healing" of the IO.js fork was needless destruction. IO.js had
very different aims from Node, and should have been left to its own. They
wanted to expand the language with "modern", Ruby-ish ammenities, rampant
transpiling and heavy build systems. All of that is completely counter to the
Node/JavaScript philosophy of simple runtimes, small modules, and universal
runnability. Idiomatic JavaScript has been relegated to a shadowy subculture
within the NPM community.

It's as if the IO.js team couldn't conceive of a group of people who actually
like debuggers and dislike build systems, so they had to ransack our package
universe and install build systems everywhere, and make debugging impossible.

Now we're stuck in a position of having to wait for the IO.js superstructure
to weaken and sag, at which point we'll be able to re-fork Node off of IO.js
and then have the two projects and real choice back again (hopefully with a
new name that's legally protected from being taken over by a usurper
language). Much slower, and much waste due to Rogers' and others' desire to
consolidate political power.

That all said, it might turn out quite well for the old school JavaScript
community in the long run, because to do the fork, we'll have to do it
properly with forkable package universes, which I suspect will be a leapfrog
feature that will provide other yet-to-be-seen benefits. In that future,
IO.js/ES6 could possibly be subsumed by our package system, and in having to
play fair and be compared with side-by-side with JavaScript will be revealed
to be the pointless syntactic sugar that it is.

Unlike the IO.js activists, such a fork wouldn't seek to delete IO.js, but it
would likely languish due to collapsing under the weight if its anti-
architectural, style-based, conformist ideology.

Brilliant play by the IO.js team though. They didn't care for JavaScript, so
they created a new language. But then they got control of the Node brand and
swapped JavaScript out for their own creation, stranding the JavaScript
community in nowhere-land. Very clever. Much easier than convincing people to
switch to IO.js on its own merits.

~~~
rvagg
/me takes a bow You're welcome

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mysticmode
That is good, but I'm concerned about the license as I'm building GPLv3
software. Some parts of NodeJS are Open SSL licensed which is GPL-
incompatible.

~~~
dankohn1
OpenSSL is in the process of relicensing to Apache-2.0, which is compatible
with GPLv3. Node.js is downstream of OpenSSL, and will pick up the new license
when the switchover is completed.

[https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2017/03/22/license/](https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2017/03/22/license/)

------
subhrm
Npm and it's cousins are 100x better than Maven and gang .

~~~
davnicwil
I've used both stacks for years. I have no complaints about Maven, to be
honest, it just works and I don't really spend much time thinking about it as
a result. On the other hand that's been less true for npm, hence why I've now
switched over to yarn.

Maybe I'm missing something though - 100x is a bold assertion and I guess you
must have some very strong reasons for preferring npm's features over Maven to
warrant that - would you mind explaining a bit more?

~~~
jbooth
I'd go as far as to say that if you've spent enough hours with your build
system that 100X is a meaningful assertion, you're spending too many hours in
your damn build system.

