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Node.js has jumped the shark

unlimitednovelty.com

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Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#61

Post by strags »

I use node.js for long-lived connections (sending/receiving large amounts of data, or long-polling). This is a task to which it is ideally suited. Putting CPU-intensive operations inside a HTTP handler is something that is obviously not going to work in a single-process, single-threaded event-driven framework. Ted's complaining because node.js is unsuitable for something that it's not intended to be used for.

Defending CGI, in my opinion, also hurts his credibility. The "good old days" weren't so good. Spawning a new process for each request? Re-establishing database connections every time? That shit only worked because there were three people on the internet at the time.

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#62

Post by mcantor »

politician wrote: post #53
urschrei wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jumped the shark" posts are an antipattern.

"Jumped the shark" joke comments are the sort of thing HNers vote down.

Is """'"Talking about being down-voted before you voice an unpopular opinion" posts have jumped the shark' is dead!""" the "Considered Harmful"-Killer?

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#63

Post by felipemnoa »

I finally decided to do some research into what Node.js actually is and it turns out that it is just another web server. Seriously? That is what all the fuss is about? Its main feature seems to be that it has an event driven loop. Yay, an event driven loop, is not like they have not existed for a really long time. Whomever is marketing this thing must be a marketing genius.

On the other hand, the real appeal might be that it allows a lot of programmers that only know JavaScript or that feel most comfortable with JavaScript to do sever side programming with JavaScript. Something that as far as I know wasn't available before which is why this thing has become popular.

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#64

Post by jbooth »

Spyro7 wrote: post #30

Am I the only one that considers all of this ranting about Nodejs to be a little bit strange? I would have never expected a post that was obviously a troll to prompt this much of a reaction on both sides of an issue. That so many of these rants and counter rants made it to the front page of Hacker News is somewhat discouraging. I have been playing around with node for a few months, and I have tried to stay completely…

So, I'm not a node.js guy, and nothing against it, but being a server-side guy in general, I'll paraphrase a quote that Zed Shaw paraphrased from Chinese Kung Fu novels:

"So the intermediate guy is doing all of these backflips and spinning roundhouse kicks and all that, it's very impressive, you couldn't imagine being in that good control of your body. He decides he's pretty good and spars with a master. The master barely even moves and puts the guy on his ass."

I think infatuation with event-driven i/o is one of those intermediate programmer things. We all took an advanced systems course in college, saw the literature from single-CPU days about how it makes so much sense, and more importantly saw how damn clever it was. There are situations where it makes a lot of sense (static file server), and then there are situations where you say "Wait, so you want me to run 8 instances of this thing in order to utilize my 8-core server?".

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#65

Post by olegp »

jarrett wrote: post #56

It seems we now have three camps: 1. "Node is the magic bullet." 2. "Node sucks." 3. "Nothing is that simple. Learn you some computer science." #3 is the correct answer, but I'd like to see this point explored in more detail. The current back-and-forth isn't productive. What would be productive is if we had an informed discussion of what Node is good at, what not to do with it, and how it compares with other tools an…

I've been trying to debunk the overly negative views on threads in the Node community. Here is my presentation on fibers and my common-node project (includes benchmarks): http://www.slideshare.net/olegp/server-side-javascript-going...

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#66

Post by chc »

michaelchisari wrote: post #32
jerf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually what I have found it has highlighted is just how many of the Node advocates completely and utterly fail to understand their competition. I really, really wanted to think it was just a few isolated people, but the evidence suggests that the meme that Node is actually some sort of multiprocessing breakthrough has spread further in the last few months, rather than dying out. So let me lay it out for you: Node's…

how many of the Node advocates completely and utterly fail to understand their competition I agree, but as someone who is generally excited about Nodejs, I see it as necessary growing pains. These kinds of criticisms and back-and-forth and flamewars, if a language or platform is having them, it doesn't make it fade into obscurity, it forces it to mature, either technically or socially. It also has the benefit of brin…

As somebody who got into Ruby shortly before Rails (because I'd heard it was a "modern Smalltalk") and was writing JavaScript back when DHTML was the new shiny thing, that's my perspective too. The evolution of Node.js reminds me a lot of Rails. It lent an air of legitimacy to a language that a lot of people used to look at sideways if at all, and it's rather overhyped by an influx of people who were plagued by the problems it solves, but it is fundamentally pretty good even when you drill past the hype.

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#67

Post by iochannel »

i quit javascript years ago and haven't missed it one bit. it's not an obstacle to work around it anymore. it's easy.

there's no place for js outside of the www/browser. and to think the inet begins and ends with the www is short-sighted.

js is made for doing silly browser tricks. enough already. the inet is much bigger and more valuable than the www and all its fragile gimmicks.

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#68

Post by seanmcq »

swah wrote: post #47

Does the same criticism applies to code written with Greenlet/Gevent (see for example Brubeck web server)?

Yes, not yielding control from a function in any evented framework will block the main event loop.

In programming languages that support coroutines, yielding a sleep every few loops will release the event loop. In languages without coroutines like javascript you will need to write your algorithm in CPS to release the event loop.

Re: Node.js has jumped the shark

#69

Post by grandalf »

jrockway wrote: post #50
politician wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I the only one that puts computationally intensive tasks into a queue to be taken care of by a pool of seperate processes? Thank you. I really find it hard to believe that the reaction to Ted's post was to mess around with Fib implementations rather than to just say, "use a background queue," and move on. If Ted has a point at all, it could be that he thinks that people using nodejs don't realize they're running…

Ted hates queues, too. But I don't, so instead of playing tough-guy and picking on random open source communities that don't want me, I get to write cool computer programs. Maybe we should all do the same.

What's his critique of queues?
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