

Show HN: Analytics.js for Node - ivolo
https://github.com/segmentio/analytics-node

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benatkin
Shouldn't the package be called "segment.io"? I'd hate to see every startup
with an API trying to grab generic names on package repositories.

That said, it looks like someone else beat you to getting "analytics" for a
README.

Perhaps you could make it so segment.io isn't the only option, or merge a pull
request that does this, and ask SlexAxton to release the name, as suggested by
izs? <https://npmjs.org/doc/disputes.html>

Edit: also npm is increasingly being used for browser packages. I'm not sure
what to do when a browser and server component share the same name.

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niggler
> npm is increasingly being used for browser packages.

What is a browser package?

If you mean something that's intended to be fed through browserify, it should
start with browserify- or end with -browserify

If you mean something like bower or component, which one should be
standardized? Hell, both use the same component.json file but they do so in
completely different ways

~~~
benatkin
Browserify has a fairly generic format, and some projects are trying to
piggyback off of browserify. Also browserify is long and people like to keep
package names short. That does simplify things, though...

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sandfox
Module name is slightly misleading... surely segment-client, node-segment or
anything else would have been more appropriate. It's not really THE analytics
library, or really an analytics library at all for nodejs.

~~~
niggler
My favorite is the utterly useless `math` library:
<https://github.com/kaleb/js-math>

~~~
benatkin
Kaleb is my hero.

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alexpopescu
I'm not sure I get it... analytics for server side?

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ivolo
(segment.io co-founder here) - you integrate with one analytics API on the
server-side - those events are sent to segment.io servers. you then pick your
favorite analytics services (mixpanel, kissmetrics, etc) and we'll transform
and route your server-side events there without you having to write and push
new analytics code.

~~~
Skywing
Does it keep intact original request host names and such, or do all requests
appear to come from your servers? Also what about mixpanels user stream
functionality - would this break stuff like that? I can see the value prop and
usefulness of this, but it is just another fee on top of a fee, in a way.

~~~
ivolo
server-side events are best used in conjunction with the client-side libraries
(via analytics.js). For example, you can use analytics.js to load the
GoSquared javascript library to keep track of referrers / concurrents on the
page, etc. Then you can turn on Mixpanel to keep track of events that happen
server-side, such as "Payment Processed", etc ..

