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The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

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Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#31

Post by MetaCosm »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #23

Isn't Node also coming 10 years late to the party? It's always easier to join the race at a later time when all you have to do is copy the efforts of others and catch up. Especially since Node has quite a few users and a lot of early days hype to sail on. That being said, good on them and good on the variety it offers people. I just wouldn't say it's "changing the face of open source" though...

It came late (but at the perfect time) -- it lowered the barrier to entry -- it changed the default licensing -- it leveraged existing systems (github).

In short, it didn't do any amazing -- but by simply combining the right tech at the right time, the result is something IMHO much better than pip or gem or X.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#32

Post by [deleted] »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #23

Isn't Node also coming 10 years late to the party? It's always easier to join the race at a later time when all you have to do is copy the efforts of others and catch up. Especially since Node has quite a few users and a lot of early days hype to sail on. That being said, good on them and good on the variety it offers people. I just wouldn't say it's "changing the face of open source" though...

[deleted]

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#33

Post by MetaCosm »

RogerDodger_n wrote: post #24

Strange that in a blog comparing package managers there's no mention of CPAN, which "currently has 120,446 Perl modules in 27,328 distributions, written by 10,567 authors" [0]. It's a lively community, sure. But "changing the face of open-source" is a stretch -- "quietly" even more so. [0]: http://www.cpan.org/

There is a huge difference in the barrier to entry. To contribute a module to cpan versus contributing a module to NPM.

You might consider the barrier a feature, but it is a wild difference.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#34

Post by cmccabe »

I don't agree with the idea that there should be no standard library. There is a lot of benefit to having a big standard library with code for common tasks like manipulating strings, performing network I/O, or formatting text. Sure, you might be able to improve on the standard library, but the next person who has to maintain your code probably won't thank you for using something weird. And if your new thing is awesome enough, it might be added to the standard library in time.

Things like this were a big problem in C++. In the early days of C++, literally nothing was standard. Everyone ran around using his own string class-- "std" string was named aspirationally, not to reflect reality. They all behaved slightly differently. It has taken literally decades to get to the point where std::string appears in most new projects in the UNIX world. (I think that Windows is still hosed, due to the continuing UCS-2 train wreck on that platform... but I digress.) Similarly, there are 31 different flavors of smart pointer, and even a master C++ programmer won't know them all. So much pointless non-standardization, so much cognitive overhead.

I'm also reminded of Perl's "there's more than one way to do it" and the "enhanced job security" that ended up providing for anyone who managed to sneak Perl into production.

There is value in modularity, but only when the choice you're giving to the library user is a valuable one. Choosing whether to use a MySQL database connector or a Postgres database connector is good diversity. Choosing which string class to use, or what we're calling BigInt this month, or which of 15 Regex libraries we're using today... that kind of diversity just gives you headaches and maintenance pain, nothing more.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#35

Post by jeffdavis »

PostgreSQL has a somewhat similar philosophy of extensibility and moving things out of core. Consider something like PostGIS: it's an entire first-class geospatial system done entirely as an extension (I don't think any other database can claim that).

It's still basically a batteries-included distribution, but it is very extensible and getting more so. I expect to see many more domain-specific extensions (you can already see a lot at http://pgxn.org ).

However, I will say that it should be a simple core but not too simplistic. Especially for something like a database, some things are better done in the core (perhaps not inherently, but it's in research-project territory). That's really the challenge: it's not "pro-modularity" versus "anti-modularity"; it's about what constitutes a good base from which to build.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#36

Post by Xcelerate »

shadowmint wrote: post #15

Obviously if Node doesnt come 'batteries included' then you have to re-invent-from-scratch all the tools like package management, dependency management, MVC libraries, etc. That doesn't mean the community is amazing and wants to contribute! ...it means, that those features didn't exist, and someone had to do them (and yes, it's really great that they're all coming out open source, but it's not revolutionary) Any lang…

I like the fact that Node comes with a small core. I'm tired of vast, bloated, incomprehensible libraries that are going to take me more time to learn how to use than they'll be worth.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#37

Post by autarch »

It's hardly surprising that there's a huge burst of growth when a language and its package repository first takes off. I'm sure if we looked at the 4 year periods where each of Perl, Python, and Ruby were hitting their stride we'd see similar numbers.

It's nice that node.js is succeeding, but it's hardly changing the face of open source. It's treading a very well-trodden path blazed by Perl starting about 28 years ago.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#38

Post by dagw »

pistacchioso wrote: post #28

Irrelevant but I must say it: Node.js forced async IO is its strength but programming it is a pain in the butt.

I used to think so too, then I stopped trying to use it for everything and started treat it as a DSL for just writing IO heavy asynchronous web services, and now I'm much happier.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#39

Post by drakaal »

I have never known Node.JS developers to be quiet.

Quite the opposite. With a single thread, gaping security holes if you want large memory support, and until about 3 weeks ago nothing that even came close to resembling compliance with HTTP standards, the onlything Node is changing in the OpenSource community is that a crowd that would have been called script kiddies 5 years ago can now put that on a resume and for some reason think that should earn them 6 figures.

Changing the Open Source community (for the better) requires doing more than hacking together a few lines of code that dupes the functionality of someone else's lines of code. Node.JS doesn't have a single innovative project that is moving all of computer science forward. If node wants to be taken seriously it needs to prove that it can play big data, or science, or linguistics with the rest of the communities.

Every language has a niche where it dominates in resources for a given field. Node has none.

Re: The Node.js Community is Quietly Changing the Face of Open Source

#40

Post by xb95 »

MetaCosm wrote: post #33
RogerDodger_n wrote: post #24

Strange that in a blog comparing package managers there's no mention of CPAN, which "currently has 120,446 Perl modules in 27,328 distributions, written by 10,567 authors" [0]. It's a lively community, sure. But "changing the face of open-source" is a stretch -- "quietly" even more so. [0]: http://www.cpan.org/

There is a huge difference in the barrier to entry. To contribute a module to cpan versus contributing a module to NPM. You might consider the barrier a feature, but it is a wild difference.

Well, if your argument is that it's easier to contribute to NPM, then you should consider that Perl has been managing the same output for 18 years that the Node community has for the past four: about 6700 modules/year.

For what it's worth, uploading to CPAN is not very difficult. Getting a PAUSE account is easy and uploading is no problem. It's really no harder than the PyPI system.

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