Things I Regret About Node.js [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by inimino » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #24

mromanuk wrote: post #4

I was thinking, watching the video "Ryan should fork it, or start over"... until he revealed it: https://github.com/ry/deno :)

My head can't wrap itself around: import { test } from " https://unpkg.com/deno_testing@0.0.5/testing.ts" There is so many issues with that I don't even no where to begin.

But this is exactly the way the Web works. Right? And that platform seems to have done alright for itself.

For libraries or professional projects, ship your dependencies or use a build system. But for one-off projects, being able to pull in a utility library without needing any tool but the interpreter you're using or some extra build step seems like a big win.

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

#272

Post by lewisinc » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #253

ahansen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is what Microsoft is trying to do with .NET Core. It's been successful so far, though they aren't at feature parity yet.

Yes, arguably the .NET Framework almost did it and is still one of the most productive frameworks available, but .NET Core has definitely improved things substantially. It's fast, well-designed, and full-featured and I expect usage to pick up greatly.

Can I use F# with it? Because I would love to learn me some F# some day.

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

#273

Post by jjjensen90 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:39 AM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #218

dnomad wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_(software)#Notable_breakag... , [2] https://www.csoonline.com/article/3214624/security/malicious... , [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16087024 And the list goes on and on IMO. What's disappointing is that these were lessons learned a long time ago and now they're being re-learned.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." - R.Jordan

I'm afraid the current frantic pace of reinvention in JS/web might cause the Breaking of the World and throw us into a Third Age where no one quite remembers the true lessons of the Ages before.

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

#274

Post by pknopf » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:50 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #219

royjacobs wrote: post #121

I think it's quite interesting to see that originally node.js was presented as a bloat-free alternative to "enterprise languages" like Java, C# or even Python or Ruby. A lot of complexity was subsequently added in an ad-hoc way which has resulted in (for example) a package management system that's wildly out of control. It's very popular of course, so I'm definitely not arguing that metric. However, the stuff that wa…

I think this is a story that gets repeated lots of times in our world of open source software dev. 1. X is SO bloated and poorly engineered full of bad legacy decisions. 2. We can totally do better let's invent a new thing, Y! 3. Wow, Y is so clean and fast and understandable. 4. But it doesn't do this thing a bunch of people reasonably really need... let's add it. (repeat 3 and 4 a few hundred times) 5. Y is so bloa…

How do you break the loop?

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

#275

Post by saurik » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:52 AM UTC

kenhwang wrote: post #261

tnolet wrote: post #118

Having worked with Maven, Gradle, Ruby Gems, Pip and the non-existing Go package management I must say I actually really like the Node / NPM combo. I guess artists are their own worst critics. edit: forgot Scala's SBT, admittedly a builder using Maven repo's but still an excellent example of how bad UX in this area can get.

Recently, when I use npm, it mostly just works. There's still the occasional node/npm version mix and match to get certain libraries to work and accidental sudo; the former might just be the poor quality of the ecosystem, and the latter is almost just user error. I'd put it par with rubygems, ahead of pip, gradle, maven, a little bit behind mix, and far behind cargo. Not a bad spot to be by any means.

> far behind cargo

For the purposes of this discussion, it is useful to note that cargo was written by Yehuda Katz (wycats), who had previously written Bundler, and so actually had some concept of what mistakes he had made before and experience specifically in this area, in order to apparently (I haven't used it yet, but I have heard lots of good things) finally have built something truly great.

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

#276

Post by inimino » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:52 AM UTC

BigJono wrote: post #254

overcast wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see how having to know only one language, is easier/faster than having to know two languages? A lot of people are doing both front and backend work. Often times it's a single person running the show. I'll tell you right now I use node for ALL my web projects, because I only have to focus on a single language. When I wear every hat managing the domain, server, databases, mail, user questions, and everything…

I don't see it. Any old idiot can learn a programming language. The difficulty doesn't come from the language, it comes from the environment and tooling.

Then the environment and tooling sucks. This is a large part of what Ryan Dahl tried to solve with Node, and I think he got a lot of it right, leading to immediate popularity of the project.

Most of the "infrastructure" stuff around deployment and, obviously, the JS ecosystem with all of its build tools and dependency explosions is still a mess, but it's important to keep eyes on the goal of getting rid of incidental complexity. Early Node did that well, modern typical Node development is of course another matter.

Once you get rid of as much accidental complexity in the environment as you can, having one less language to use is a huge win.

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

#277

Post by danschumann » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:52 AM UTC

I still remember the first time I saw his node.js release video- changed my life.

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

#278

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:55 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #219

royjacobs wrote: post #121

I think it's quite interesting to see that originally node.js was presented as a bloat-free alternative to "enterprise languages" like Java, C# or even Python or Ruby. A lot of complexity was subsequently added in an ad-hoc way which has resulted in (for example) a package management system that's wildly out of control. It's very popular of course, so I'm definitely not arguing that metric. However, the stuff that wa…

I think this is a story that gets repeated lots of times in our world of open source software dev. 1. X is SO bloated and poorly engineered full of bad legacy decisions. 2. We can totally do better let's invent a new thing, Y! 3. Wow, Y is so clean and fast and understandable. 4. But it doesn't do this thing a bunch of people reasonably really need... let's add it. (repeat 3 and 4 a few hundred times) 5. Y is so bloa…

Exactly! "originally X was presented as a bloat-free alternative to 'enterprise languages'"

For awhile, "Burn the Diskpacks!" was a battle cry of the Squeak Smalltalk community. That sort of policy fights bloat, but leaves old users in the lurch. I think that we are now to the point where a language/environment can trim bloat while not abandoning old users. If the language has enough annotation, and has the infrastructure for powerful syntactic transformation tools, then basic library revisions can be accompanied by automated source rewriting tools. We were pretty close to it in Smalltalk, without the annotations.

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

#279

Post by pknopf » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #208

bartread wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem with "bloat-free" is it's a fine ideal until you try to solve any kind of reasonably complex problem, and honestly it starts to creep in even when you're solving something that isn't particularly complex. Here's a concrete example. Your classic node.js or express.js sample app is something fairly simple like a hello world, or an IM server. A more complex sample probably looks something like that v…

IMHO, the point of using a no-frills library/framework is because you want you write the rest of it yourself. The advantage of this is that it meets your requirements exactly and is therefore smaller/less complex. When doing a project that takes only a few weeks, I would probably choose a framework that has everything in the box. But if you are building something that is going to be developed over a period of years,…

The gist, every dependency you bring in your app should be thought about, really hard.

If your using 10% of the lib, just implement it yourself.

If the lib is critical, like openssl, bring it in. Other people have solved the hard problems for you.

But yeah, it's a balance.

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

#280

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

pknopf wrote: post #274

jrochkind1 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a story that gets repeated lots of times in our world of open source software dev. 1. X is SO bloated and poorly engineered full of bad legacy decisions. 2. We can totally do better let's invent a new thing, Y! 3. Wow, Y is so clean and fast and understandable. 4. But it doesn't do this thing a bunch of people reasonably really need... let's add it. (repeat 3 and 4 a few hundred times) 5. Y is so bloa…

How do you break the loop?

Refactor and trim the bloat on the basic libraries, but have a policy where bulletproof automated source rewriting tools are provided in those cases. Perhaps this isn't possible with Javascript, but it might be possible with other languages.