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Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

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Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#91

Can anyone explain why he called Dart a complete failure? https://youtu.be/M3BM9TB-8yA?t=19m55s ps: I am a junior developer. I am taking up Dart to learn Mobile apps development using Flutter.

There is only one metrics in programming language: popularity. Not quality. Not elegance. Not features. Not performance.

The Dart community is ridiculously small compared to anything to the competition, despite the heavy investment in it.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why this is a benefit when the one language is - let's say - suboptimal in many ways. The interfaces between server- and client-side code should be well-defined and language-independent. You don't want the same people writing both, because it's harder to check that your API is working to spec if it doesn't get fully independent testing. There's also a lot of useful server-side optimisation and s…

Having the same language allows to share some code between frontend and backend. This can be used to prerender your SPA on the server, for example, or to share some logic with the client to enable offline usage.

Being able to share code is really not that great because you don't share that much code between front and back in reality. Being able to share the paradigms, structure, mindset and tooling (like linters, formatters, code generators, packagers, whatever..) is what's awesome. You remove a whole lot of context switches and cognitive dissonance, smoothing the train of thought which greatly eases the expression of ideas.

Source: used quite a bunch of golang + gopherjs, ruby + opal, js + node

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#93
post #46

Interesting that he's unsure about Go. Would be nice to hear about why. One huge strength about Node (&Deno) is having the same language and tools on the front end and back end. Its a huge benefit to have a team on one language, even if it might not be the optimal choice. I'm not sure if that is the problem he had with Go though.

I've never understood why this is a benefit when the one language is - let's say - suboptimal in many ways. The interfaces between server- and client-side code should be well-defined and language-independent. You don't want the same people writing both, because it's harder to check that your API is working to spec if it doesn't get fully independent testing. There's also a lot of useful server-side optimisation and s…

You're presupposing an old-school 3-tier architecture. Baking that client:server approach into your org structure is not necessarily optimal.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#96

much respect to ryan for coming out like this. i used to think that he might have thought node was the bee’s knees and that callbacks and promises were sent from the gods. glad to hear him confirm what a lot of js devs are feeling right now with the wretchedness of the js callbacks, promises, and generators. there is a better way and im glad he is trying to do something about it.

Promises (with async/await) aren't so bad. He explicitly says he regrets taking promises out of early versions of Node.js.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#97

much respect to ryan for coming out like this. i used to think that he might have thought node was the bee’s knees and that callbacks and promises were sent from the gods. glad to hear him confirm what a lot of js devs are feeling right now with the wretchedness of the js callbacks, promises, and generators. there is a better way and im glad he is trying to do something about it.

He looked pretty ok with async/await (which uses Promises under the hood), one of the advertised features of his new project is top level await.

Which is unfortunate. Top-level await is a very bad footgun and should almost never be used.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#98
post #59

i have always really enjoyed listen to ryan speak. he seems very humble for all of his accomplishments.

Agree completely. Although one of the more interesting "talks" I ever heard him give was a discussion on promises. I was lucky enough to be in (the ridiculously long) line behind him waiting for food at NodeConf in 2012 and he and an engineer from Microsoft had a pretty spirited discussion that explored the subject in way more depth than I had previously thought possible. Ironically, given that he now considers the r…

> it was the engineer from Microsoft who took the pro-promises side of that argument

JavaScript's async/await is essentially taken from C# (with "promises" instead of "tasks"), so that could explain it.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#99
post #77
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interfaces between server- and client-side code should be well-defined and language-independent. They dont have to be and that is the point. If you write JS/TS front and back you can make everything much simpler with the associated benefits.

But in what specific way way does it make it simpler? What are the tangible benefits? I've been working in a Node/React environment for the last 2 years and there is virtually no overlap between the code we use on front- vs backend projects.

So much this. Although in theory I can see why this would be appealing, however in practice, our Node backend and Ember frontend have very little code they can share. Maybe there's an argument for devs being able to jump back and forth. But again, in practice, the paradigms are very different so I am not sure there's a huge benefit.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

#100

He talks about not to add in features you think would be “cute” because they are always a mistake.. Then a few minutes later says “I thought being able to specify URLs in import statements would be cute..” Uhh...Houston, we have a problem with this one.

I do believe that’s on purpose...
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