

Ask HN: Why are there some many *.js frameworks/api's coming out - quietthrow

Its seems like, these days, everybody and their mother is writing a .js library or framework. Whats is causing this sudden phenomenon. Why do people want to use javascript the server or middlewhere or wherever ? what changed ? Would like to get the community&#x27;s perspective.
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j0ev
1\. node.js happened

2\. lots of devs already know the javascript API very well.. a lot of times
these same devs write server backends. why not share code between client and
server?

3\. (maybe just me) it turns out writing in a language as dynamic and flexible
as javascript is pretty fun

~~~
quietthrow
1\. I guess why did node.js happen. Was the developer just trying to showcase
his skills and did it for fun, and then went viral. And now everybody else is
just doing that. To me then *.js are nothing more than a fad. 2\. Reasonable.
3\. Php is fun, has more support (atleast when it comes to doing more
'servery' stuff.

~~~
hath995
I'm not an expert on Node.js but my understanding is that Ryan Dahl wasn't
happy with the performance that PHP and Apache provide. PHP is very feature
complete but the way Apache handles web requests means that a web server has a
relatively low max capacity. Apache handles requests by forking the process
which is both slow and resource intensive.

The way Ryan explained it is that moving past that performance barrier is a
solved by a single threaded application that can respond to event based input
output. He liked Javascript because it is such a minimal language which
already supports that paradigm and has advanced tools and community.

That's the main point that I recall from one of the talks of his that I
watched. There are some tertiary reasons as well which make Javascript a good
choice.

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bobfirestone
I think the biggest single thing to happen was significantly faster JavaScript
processing. The speed boost has made things that were previously not worth
doing possible. With out the V8 engine node.js was not a realistic
proposition.

~~~
quietthrow
Agree. V8 is one part of the equation. However, in my opinion re-inventing the
wheel for fun can be argued both ways.

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codeonfire
JavaScript is fun and easier if you don't have to share code or data with
other people. there are no contracts, no interfaces, no classes to slow you
down, and most of the software world has a 'screw the other guy' mentality
anyway. All you have to do is remember what your own data looks like for a
short time. Most code will not be shared with outsiders and most people want
to impede their coworkers rather than do extra work to make things easier. so
the mentality is "why not use JavaScript for everything."

~~~
quietthrow
I never understood the 'fun' part when people refer to programming languages
since its so subjective. Apart from that I agree with your comment, in that
the field of software engineering is so young and as a result one has to deal
with a lot of noise, because everybody is trying to contribute which is a good
thing, but it also creates chaos.

~~~
j0ev
When I call a language fun, I generally mean:

1\. It delights me by doing what I want.

2\. It makes normally complex programming tasks easy (try metaprogramming in
php).

3\. It is simpler than I originally imagined.

1 & 2 generally means... it's a "hackable" language (ruby is another good
example). 3 is icing.

