

NodeJS is now the most popular repository on Github - diamondhead
https://github.com/popular/watched

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bascule
Just to show how Github watchers correlate to real-world popularity, my now-
defunct programming language Reia is the #3 most watched Erlang project on
Github, ahead of projects like Riak and RabbitMQ:

<https://github.com/languages/erlang>

~~~
wslh
Also we can compare with StackOverflow tags followers:

\- C# 22.2K followers

\- NodeJS 2.2K followers

~~~
blacksmythe
I think having 10% as many StackOverflow followers as for C# is a big win for
an emerging technology.

~~~
skrebbel
also, it would make more sense to compare node to ASP.NET.

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ryanfitz
Looking at that listing the more amazing stat is that twitter bootstrap is #3.
That was just released a few months ago and is "simply" an html ui framework.
I think this highlights that over anything else, what most developers really
need is a solid web ui to get started with.

~~~
ergo14
It just shows that people hype on everything and follow like sheep - doesn't
matter if they need particular project or not. Developers are no exception it
seems...

~~~
hello_moto
At the same time, it also shows that developers or hackers are no different
that consultants that keep selling new methodologies.

Our products are new programming languages, new patterns, new programming
paradigm.

~~~
ergo14
What's the name of last thing you sold?

~~~
hello_moto
scalable architecture utilizing event-driven non-blocking I/O

~~~
ergo14
anything open source? id love to see link to it - ive recently wrote my own
cometd server with gevent and im looking for more examples ;-)

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skrebbel
Call me a cynic, but how is this relevant? Everybody knows that Node is
popular. It's like adding "Rihanna scores #1 hit record" as a news item.

~~~
hello_moto
I find the example fits nicely. Rihanna and Node.

FWIW, I think Node is a great way to teach, explore, and learn JavaScript
without the browser. It helps me learn modern JS techniques quickly. But Node
powering my web-server? Like Rihanna...

PS: Check out this free online book: <http://eloquentjavascript.net/> big
props to the author. He's done a great job teaching modern JS.

~~~
phillmv
You are being non sensical. Does Rihanna respond to HTTP verbs?

I like Node insofar as it distracts hate away from the Ruby community, but
c'mon now.

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hello_moto
C'mon what?

No, Rihanna does not respond to HTTP verbs. But then again, that's what young
teens/early adults listen these days with less appreciation of music.

Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Rihanna. C'mon now. What has come to the
music industry?

I thank Ted Dziuba for knocking the wind out of Node a bit. It puts some
perspective and questions to a lot of people's head when it comes to how to
use Node.js. Props to him for taking time explaining the important bits.

Rails community was off the chart when it comes to cockiness back then so I
suppose it deserves the hate.

~~~
phillmv
1\. Thirty years ago, this dutch novelty pop act charted #1 in the US
Billboard charts <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bGQ1-Gmoso> (watching it now
is kind of great, actually)

2\. In much the same way I tire of Node people claiming it's The Best Thing
Ever because it has the shiniest Cargo[1] I also can't stand people who hate
things purely because other people like it. You hate them because they have
the shiniest Cargo.

I'm sure it has a purpose and it solves problems. I'd much prefer to discuss
its technical merits, though. (Note: this was not an invitation to discuss its
technical merits in this thread)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult>

~~~
hello_moto
For the record: I don't hate Node.JS as I am using it to explore JS. I'm glad
CommonJS exist to introduce common standards to JS (modularity, OS APIs, etc)
so I can write JS outside browser.

I am with you that I'm tired to see people pushing NodeJS. But I suppose am
even more tired to see people working on some simple web app using NodeJS and
pretend that it's Gold. I prefer to see people get better in fundamental
concepts as oppose to keep hack-job and move on to the next thing.

I'm tired to meet with people in my day job that keep pushing for the latest
tech.

"For the next project we must use JavaScript and NodeJS" or the "I can cut
most of the LoC if we were to use JS". Only to hear that "Yeah, I'm not too
sure, I just have a gut feeling that we could do with less LoC" after I
drilled them as to "why it'll be less LoC? How can we solve X component with
JS and its current libraries? How can we test Y automatically and
efficiently?"

I'm tired to interview people that put in their resume "I know NodeJS" but
flunk fundamental computer science aptitude.

I'm tired to hear "you know, if we re-wrote this bits with Rails, it'll be
_MUCH_ better".

For these people, their Java skill is "decent". Their Ruby skill is "decent".
Their JS skill is "hey I just read JS The Good Parts and this is how Crockford
sez we should write JS" yet still missing the structure, the discipline, the
"write for readability not for meta-programming"

Too many Learn-Yourself-24-Hours Ruby programmers out there. Too many Learn-
Yourself-24-hours-me-too JavaScript programmers out there.

Ok, enough rant for Saturday morning :) Good day everybody.

~~~
pault
What do you consider fundamental computer science aptitude?

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senthilnayagam
congrats to nodejs , it is the shiny new thing, but it is still not there yet

rails is lot older and it came to github when forking was the norm , watching
came lot later

in terms of forks nodejs is half the popularity of rails, but I wish more
contributors for nodejs

~~~
damncabbage

      rails is lot older and it came to github when forking
      was the norm , watching came lot later
    

Aha! So is _that_ why there are so many accounts that just contain forked
repositories with no further commits?

(I suppose it was a heavy form of bookmarking something.)

~~~
senthilnayagam
Git workflow is evolving, and github in its forefront

If you want to compare on contributors Rails would again beat most open source
projects , I remember seeing that number well above 1000

~~~
vijaydev
Last count: 2155 as per <http://contributors.rubyonrails.org> :)

~~~
spooneybarger
Some of us on that list haven't contributed in a really long time.

My contributions for example were pre rails 1.0 days so my part of that number
isn't really meaningful to current popularity.

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lucian1900
I think this is a little sad. Pragmatically, NodeJS is great. But the only
reason it's popular is because browsers only run one (deeply flawed) language.

~~~
maxwell
Remind me which existing language(s) aren't deeply flawed?

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jjm
Yeah seriously. The be all end all of languages has yet to arrive. Language
and programming is an art, not some maximist metric. The Mona lisa is as
flawed as JavaScript and every other language that exist.

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terrellm
I wonder how much of the popularity is because popularity was perhaps a goal
of some of the NodeJS advocates. Recently I stumbled on <http://nodejs-vs-
ror.nodejitsu.com>, which in the source at
[https://github.com/mmalecki/nodejs-vs-
ror/blob/master/public...](https://github.com/mmalecki/nodejs-vs-
ror/blob/master/public/index.html#L24) seems to imply beating Rails follow
count was a goal. I'm not sure where I found the link but probably here on HN.

I guess someone in the Rails community could create a similar project and say
"OK guys everyone go follow Rails on GitHub."

I have no issue with the technique as businesses do this all the time...
encouraging customers to Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, etc.
Perhaps this a hacker version of social media marketing... who needs Facebook
likes, let's get Github followers.

~~~
mmalecki
It's my project and it's purpose wasn't to beat Rails follow count, really.

As you can see, it uses knockout.js and this is why I wrote it - I wanted to
learn this library and to study whole client-side rendering and templating
concept a bit. It's also my first project using bootstrap.css.

It was a fun thing to hack on.

Of course, I'm happy that node.js has more followers than RoR, simply because
I like node.js more than RoR. However, lets not make it a big deal. These are
just numbers.

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muppetman
Silverlight was very popular when it was first released too.

~~~
coreyrecvlohe
Silverlight was popular? When did this happen...

