

One Year with Node.js - bcantrill
https://www.joyent.com/blog/one-year-with-nodejs

======
bsimpson
Reminds me of this clip from the Daily Show where Donald Rumsfeld claimed he
was always skeptical about bringing western-style democracy to the Middle
East, even after championing that idea for a decade:

[http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/x3o1ly/june-11--
201...](http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/x3o1ly/june-11--2015---mark-
ruffalo)

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inglor
This is the same guy who said 'io.js, what's that?' And paid people not to
switch... He's not fooling anyone [http://readwrite.com/2015/02/03/joyent-
nodejs-incubator-iojs...](http://readwrite.com/2015/02/03/joyent-nodejs-
incubator-iojs-node-io-fork)

One more thing: Developers using IO instead of Node are, well, not invited.

“IO.js, what’s that?” asked Joyent CEO Scott Hammond in response to my query
about whether projects based on the fork would be able to enter. “This is a
Node.js project for Node.js innovations.” "

~~~
bcantrill
Disclaimer: I'm Joyent's CTO and I work for Scott. Normally I wouldn't comment
on something on which I'm so obviously conflicted, but the record needs to be
set straight on this point: Scott was taken entirely out of context by the
reporter. In reference to the node.js incubator, the reporter (reasonably)
asked about io.js. As an attempt at humor (albeit perhaps an ill advised one),
Scott responded with: "IO.js -- what's that?" When there was an awkward
silence, it was instantly clear to Scott that his attempt at humor had fallen
flat -- and it was immediately clarified to the reporter that it was a joke:
that he obviously knew what io.js was, and that the emphasis of the program
was on node.js. That the reporter published the quote anyway (implying that
Scott didn't, in fact, know what io.js was) was to take Scott grossly out of
context. When we later asked ReadWriteWeb to clarify that Scott had been taken
out of context, they flatly refused -- which is unfortunate, because it has
resulted in heaps of undeserved abuse. (Many who have been involved with io.js
have, in fact, gone out of their way to praise working with Scott.[1][2])

Now if I may inject my personal (if biased) opinion: the objective of the
reporter was not to get the facts straight in this case, but rather to get
eyeballs on the page -- ginning conflict if and as necessary. This is
unfortunate, but it's not at all a surprise. It should also serve as a warning
to all who engage with those who write about current events for a living: some
(many, in fact) hold themselves up as journalists and work hard to get the
story right -- but not all do, and one must be very careful, especially when
attempting humor that might be deliberately taken out of context!

[1]
[https://twitter.com/mikeal/status/555572909247574017](https://twitter.com/mikeal/status/555572909247574017)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/dshaw/status/610821802466639873](https://twitter.com/dshaw/status/610821802466639873)

~~~
mattkrea
As much as I leaned toward the merger (running both in production _sucks_ ) I
don't think people thought he was being serious--obviously he had to know what
io.js was. Instead of being humorous it comes off as somewhat smug and
ignoring a legitimate question or at least that's how I took it.

~~~
jessaustin
_...running both in production_ sucks _..._

I'm sure it does. Can you describe the situation that has forced you to do
this? Do you rely on modules that are limited to one or the other? Are those
internal modules?

~~~
mattkrea
I simply haven't had the time to upgrade some but others are running on
Elastic Beanstalk which is capped at Node 0.10.26 believe it or not.

For newer things I'm running io.js 2.x and patiently waiting for the first
merged release but wanted io.js for the ES6 functionality and IIRC Node 0.12.0
wasn't out yet.

~~~
mariusc23
Looks like they support up to 0.12.4 now.

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/conce...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/concepts.platforms.html#concepts.platforms.nodejs)

~~~
mattkrea
Good catch. The AMI I'm using could be outdated. I'll have to update later.

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r0naa
> While crucial, an open governance model by itself does not guarantee long-
> term success. We’ll need to balance the needs of the strong developer
> community with those of the users

Correct me if I am wrong but aren't "developers" the very users of Node.js?

> and encourage a vibrant ecosystem of technology and service providers to
> ensure the bright future we all envision.

He speaks about the "goal" without detailing the strategy. In short, he throws
platitudes at the readers without effectively bringing anything interesting.

I understand that this is a PR but a couple lines would have been welcomed.
You know, to ensure that we can envision "this bright future"!

~~~
jsnk
I think developers are users for sure, but not all users are developers.
There's also a large corporate wing of users for node. Huge companies like
Walmart and Netflix who are invested in the technology and want to see Node.js
develop in a certain way to their advantage. At the end of the day, there's
money to be made in the technology somehow. And this isn't to say it's a bad
thing at all. Stakeholders of node.js isn't just developers at this point.

~~~
r0naa
Good point.

> At the end of the day, there's money to be made in the technology somehow.

But reading Scott Hammond's PR again I have the impression that he oppose the
open-governance model to Enterprise users' needs. I might be operating under
the wrong set of assumptions but to me, an open-governance model is the _best_
way to make the smartest decisions possible for the language's future and
accommodates everyone needs as much as possible.

Slightly off-topic but Eran Hammer's post describe some of the conflicts
between Enterprise needs and the Web world's in the context of OAuth 2.0 :
[http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/26/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-
to-h...](http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/26/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/)

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outside1234
Ah, the joys of revisionist history...

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KenanSulayman
I'm uncomfortably bipolar about this guy.

