

Ryan Dahl's NodeConf Slides  - franze
http://nodejs.org/nodeconf.pdf

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simonw
We're collecting coverage of NodeConf on Lanyrd:
<http://lanyrd.com/2011/nodeconf/coverage/> \- 13 slide decks and 9 session
write-ups so far.

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SlyShy
Cool information about the difficulties of writing high-concurrency software
that runs on both Windows and Unix. I like the approach of removing #ifdef
hell from the Node portion of the code by putting it in liboio. I hope the
goal of using less than 100 mb RSS is met, it'd be nice to run Node on smaller
machines.

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StudyAnimal
Now that is how you compare how different operating systems work as servers.
Compared to:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/h51qr/my_office_just_g...](http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/h51qr/my_office_just_got_a_new_server_what_do_you_think/c1smzqh)

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va1en0k
I can't see any possible reason for someone to run node.js on Windows. Even if
windows is installed on his local machine.

For debugging, we're using Vagrant. One can install on VM using Vagrant
whatever he wants.

Really, why? Why node.js on the server running Windows?

~~~
Klonoar
There's legions of programmers out there using Windows. Just because they
choose to operate on a MS OS/stack doesn't mean they're not worth targeting or
reaching out to. Beyond just this fact, you need to think about the future -
when you were young, how did you get started programming?

Javascript is spreading to more and more devices, and being the main language
of the web browser environment doesn't hurt this. I'd wager it definitely
doesn't hurt to be able to install Node on a Windows machine if you're a new
programmer and want to get into programming.

~~~
BasDirks
"when you were young, how did you get started programming?"

By installing a linux distro.

~~~
dspillett
Pah. Youngsters today don't know they're born.

We only had a BBC Micro to cut out programming teeth on, but we were 'appy...

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tlrobinson
Until Node gets long stack traces natively (as mentioned in the slides) check
out this hack: <https://github.com/tlrobinson/long-stack-traces>

It works in stock Chrome too, since it's implemented in JavaScript using V8's
stack trace API.

Caveats: There is some performance penalty. Not for use in production. May
"leak" memory in certain situations (e.x. function foo() { setTimeout(foo,
ms); })

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franze
in my humble opinion: supporting windows for the server side is like
supporting IE 6 for the client side -> ressources best spend elsewhere

~~~
Klonoar
This is... nothing like supporting IE6, and furthermore your opinion of IE6
sounds like you really don't get the point of supporting it to begin with.

While I'm not an IE6 advocate, support for that browser generally comes down
to the general percentage of it visiting your site. If there is convertable
revenue there you will (99% of the time) end up supporting it; if not, that's
your loss. This is a hard fact.

The same thing goes for Node. There are countless numbers of programmers
operating on a Windows stack; the large number of Windows machines opens up
Node to an adoption level that's actually far beyond what it could ever really
gain with just Mac/Linux/BSD alone. It's possible Joyent has a vested interest
in this, but I'd also wager it's just about being available to as many
programmers as possible because the market is there.

~~~
franze
there are major costs to support legacy and incompatible plattforms, costs
mostly paid in additional workload and testing, loss of "agility" and speed.
it's very impressive how far node.js has come in a very short time. yeah maybe
the raise in market-share (and additional developers for the ecosystem) will
be more valuable than the costs, maybe not.

i, as an egoistical dev-on-mac, would rather see a stable 1.0 for mac/unix
soon, than a 0.8 for max/unix/win within the same timeframe.

as a thought experiment: would native max os x apps be as sophisticated as
they are now, if all devs had decided to port them to windows (xp / vista / 7
/ ...), too.

