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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

#51

Post by agilebyte »

drakaal wrote: post #39

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 s…

Your comment does not seem fair or balanced. And now there are two useless comments on this thread.

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

#52

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

dr_faustus wrote: post #50

Its ridiculous to compare the take up of an execution environment to that of new programming languages. Of course it takes MUCH longer for a language to get traction than for a simple piece of infrastructure using a language that has been around for 14 years (at the time of node's inception). Many packages in npm are just code which has been around for quite some time before npm existed or it comes from the client an…

Um, I doubt most of the packages were existing JS code. Many, sure, but not most.

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

#53

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

MetaCosm wrote: post #26
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 honestly think it might be (changing the face of open source), I am not a part of the node.js community, but I do look at the way NPM works with a bit of jealousy. Born at the right time, defaulting to the "right" (according to me) license, with the right mix of tools that make it easy to publish and share -- and bluntly I hope other communities (like Erlang, one close to my heart) follow suit.

NPM is amazing. I used to use Python, which had the right idea with its modules but got so much of the implementation horribly wrong, and it has multiple package managers. Node, however, got modules right. Files and modules are in completely separate namespaces, and npm is a single package manager that "just works". The fact node isn't "batteries included" doesn't matter, because requiring modules is easy and dependencies "just work". You stop worrying about setting up dependencies, so you stop worrying when you want to add another dependency. It's great.

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

#54

Post by vidarh »

steveklabnik wrote: post #20

> It seems to me that monolithic frameworks like Rails don’t have a clear notion of what does not belong in Rails, and so they tend to expand indefinitely to include everything an application could need. Rails 4 will see _eight_ different things that used to be in core extracted to a gem. The diff from 3.2.13 to 4.0.0.beta1 was +110,000 to - 100,000, so it's grown about 10% in the next major version. Rails is obvious…

I was about to comment about this as well. I don't particularly like Rails. One of my most linked posts on my blog is a rant about what I don't like about Rails. But that was written when Rails 2 was current, and while I don't particularly like Rails still, I'm very happy to see that Rails has steadily moved towards splitting more and more stuff into separate gems that are increasingly useful in non-Rails scenarios.

So while Rails certainly is "batteries included" and "full stack" in many ways, I don't see how it contradicts the "tiny module aesthetic" that this guy mentions: A typical Rails deployment is big, sure, but it's big by pulling in a ton of, in many cases quite small, modules, more and more of which can be replaced

I still have issues with the level of coupling in a typical Rails deployment (e.g. a number of gems still pretty much expect a full "default" Rails stack, so replacing or avoiding specific components is often tricky), but the landscape has changed drastically.

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

#56

Post by Tobu »

htilford wrote: post #25
ultimoo wrote: post #21

While I see the point the OP is trying to make, I feel the article is not written in a neutral way, with whatever little knowledge of node.js I have. Isn't Node.js a platform? And JavaScript the language? I looked it up and JavaScript has been around since 1995 (which makes it contemporary to Ruby and Python).

It's not about language, it's about the module ecosystem. Less Node.js vs Ruby vs Python more npm vs gem vs pip

pip didn't exist in 1991 though. CPAN got mature faster (and it has 120k modules), but such a comparison isn't satisfactory without a curve showing the yearly growth rate.

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

#57

Post by aidos »

So, you want to compile LessCss. You go to npm and have a look at the options. Which package to use?

assemble-less, baidu-less, buildr laessig, less, less-bal, less-clean, less-cluster, less-context-functions, less-features-connect, less-less, lesscompile, lesscw, lessup, lesswatcher, lessweb, style-compile, styles, watch-lessc, wepp

Number of packages is far from a perfect measure of how much interesting and important work is going on in a community.

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

#58

Post by glenjamin »

cmccabe wrote: post #34

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 awesom…

All of the things you listed are within the scope of node.js's standard library - except for BigInt.

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

#60

Post by MetaCosm »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #53
MetaCosm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think it might be (changing the face of open source), I am not a part of the node.js community, but I do look at the way NPM works with a bit of jealousy. Born at the right time, defaulting to the "right" (according to me) license, with the right mix of tools that make it easy to publish and share -- and bluntly I hope other communities (like Erlang, one close to my heart) follow suit.

NPM is amazing. I used to use Python, which had the right idea with its modules but got so much of the implementation horribly wrong, and it has multiple package managers. Node, however, got modules right. Files and modules are in completely separate namespaces, and npm is a single package manager that "just works". The fact node isn't "batteries included" doesn't matter, because requiring modules is easy and depende…

npm publish lets you create something new and share it trivially and in a useful manner.

This might end up being a negative in the long run, but for now it seems like a huge positive.

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