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Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

deno.com

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Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#11
> There’s been some criticism lately about Deno - about Deploy, KV, Fresh, and our momentum in general.

It seems like they never replied to the criticism against their momentum (something I haven't seen myself, what would the argument even be), was that intentional or just missed?

> Some of that criticism is valid.

Would have been great to also outline what criticism is/was valid, and how they're aiming to solve those things. Sure, maybe a bit "shoot yourself in the foot" but personally I really prefer companies that are upfront about the drawbacks, and makes it more likely I'll chose them. Migadu is a great example of this, where they have a pro/con page where they are upfront about the drawbacks of using Migadu (https://migadu.com/procon/). Just the existence of that page is probably ~20% of why I chose Migadu in the first place.

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#13

I was super-excited about Deno right up until they threw away their earlier commitments and added backwards compatibility for node and all the shite that comes with it. The whole selling point for me was that deno was node without the bullshit and baggage, but they dropped that and basically just turned it into node with built in typescript support and a few other minor things like the permissions. Similar story with…

> Does anyone know of a server-side typescript scripting engine that is not trying to be backwards compatible with node?

What's the point? If you're in love with static types, but have to do JavaScript because you're targeting the browser, I kind of understand why'd you go for TypeScript. But if you're on the backend, and don't need anything JS, why limit yourself to TypeScript which is a "Compile-to-JS" language? You control the stack, make another choice.

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#14
post #8

Post is by the CEO and doesn't really address the criticisms around Deno, just seems to justify their own internal decisions (or his?). Seems like Deno products work really well for Deno though!

What criticisms of deno do you think went unaddressed?

They don't really address stability, and even go as far to say they aren't chasing parity. Blog post gives off major "you're holding it wrong" vibes.

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#15
post #7

I’m sure a bunch of the criticism of Deno is exaggerated. But there’s something fundamental holding me back from investing my time in Deno, or Bun for that matter: they’re both VC funded. The post is a good illustration of why that matters. Very little of it is about Deno itself, instead it’s mostly about the paid-for services Deno Inc offers. They have to prioritise and chase that because their investors want to see…

Could it be that they added node compatibility because people wanted node compatibility. If investors pushed for it as well, then they were just being sensible...

I started working with JS/TS just before Deno 2 came out and having, essentially, full node (and TypeScript) compatibility was the primary reason I switched to it. It is all just so simple in comparison to node.

But, I agree about the VC funding - it certainly gives cause for concern about Deno's direction and longevity. But what other option is there, really? Hopefully what was said in this post about reduction of Deno Deploy locations being a function of use rather than economics was true

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#16
post #13

I was super-excited about Deno right up until they threw away their earlier commitments and added backwards compatibility for node and all the shite that comes with it. The whole selling point for me was that deno was node without the bullshit and baggage, but they dropped that and basically just turned it into node with built in typescript support and a few other minor things like the permissions. Similar story with…

> Does anyone know of a server-side typescript scripting engine that is not trying to be backwards compatible with node? What's the point? If you're in love with static types, but have to do JavaScript because you're targeting the browser, I kind of understand why'd you go for TypeScript. But if you're on the backend, and don't need anything JS, why limit yourself to TypeScript which is a "Compile-to-JS" language? Yo…

> why limit yourself to TypeScript which is a "Compile-to-JS" language? You control the stack, make another choice.

Because some of us _like_ typescript, or at a minimum, have invested a significant portion of our careers learning ts/js. We want an ROI, we just don't want node/npm.

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#17
post #13

I was super-excited about Deno right up until they threw away their earlier commitments and added backwards compatibility for node and all the shite that comes with it. The whole selling point for me was that deno was node without the bullshit and baggage, but they dropped that and basically just turned it into node with built in typescript support and a few other minor things like the permissions. Similar story with…

> Does anyone know of a server-side typescript scripting engine that is not trying to be backwards compatible with node? What's the point? If you're in love with static types, but have to do JavaScript because you're targeting the browser, I kind of understand why'd you go for TypeScript. But if you're on the backend, and don't need anything JS, why limit yourself to TypeScript which is a "Compile-to-JS" language? Yo…

maybe because async Python is painful, an async TypeScript / JS is the default.

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#19
> One of the biggest questions we’ve been hearing is about Deno Deploy — specifically, the reduction in available regions. While we understand the optics of this scaling back, it isn’t for the reasons often feared or accused.

> Rather, reality is: most applications don’t need to run everywhere. They need to be fast, close to their data, easy to debug, and compliant with local regulations. We are optimizing for that.

Why does this sound very odd? I chose to not use Deno Deploy because region was not close enough and it would have just make everything slower than using other means. (Because there are many options to host data closer to overall end-users, and some regulations also happen on country level)

Re: Reports of Deno's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

#20
post #13

I was super-excited about Deno right up until they threw away their earlier commitments and added backwards compatibility for node and all the shite that comes with it. The whole selling point for me was that deno was node without the bullshit and baggage, but they dropped that and basically just turned it into node with built in typescript support and a few other minor things like the permissions. Similar story with…

> Does anyone know of a server-side typescript scripting engine that is not trying to be backwards compatible with node? What's the point? If you're in love with static types, but have to do JavaScript because you're targeting the browser, I kind of understand why'd you go for TypeScript. But if you're on the backend, and don't need anything JS, why limit yourself to TypeScript which is a "Compile-to-JS" language? Yo…

Why would you use something other than a JS framework to build a web app back-end? You don't have to deal with OpenAPI or GraphQL, you can just use server actions.
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