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Yahoo Mail moving to React

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Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#51

Post by xtrumanx »

Todd wrote: post #26
remon wrote: post #4

What an odd trend. First Netflix moves part of their infrastructure to Node ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8631022 ) and now Yahoo is doing something similar. Node.js is great but I don't think huge enterprise systems for some of the largest brands in the world are necessarily the best fit. I wish they'd provide some insights on why they're making that particular move.

Speaking from personal experience, I'm reluctantly moving from my favorite stack (C# MVC) to Node.js in order to be able to build an isomorphic SPA in the most straightforward way. Node is the stack of choice for JS and the obvious choice if you want to render on the client and the server using as much shared code as possible. That said, you're still free to develop your API using your favorite technologies. To be ho…

As a C# developer, I too am building isomorphic apps currently in NodeJS (with ReactJS).

Then I found out about ReactJS.NET [0] which allows for server-side rendering of ReactJS components from ASP.NET. I haven't had a chance to try it out properly yet but my preliminary test of it made it seem plausible for creating isomorphic apps in ASP.NET. Have you given it a shot? If so, what are your thoughts?

[0] http://reactjs.net/

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#52

Post by barosl »

wildpeaks wrote: post #25
bhouston wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that Paypal did this as well about a year ago. (This is the best link I can find quickly: https://www.paypal-engineering.com/2013/11/22/node-js-at-pay... I am sure there are more.)

Paypal recently had an interesting follow-up talk "9 anti-patterns for node.js teams" about what they learnt in the past year. Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/jeharrell/9-antipatterns-for-nodej... Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6phif2t-wj0

It is surprising to me that they recommend callbacks over promises! I had no idea that promises require higher CPU resources.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#53

Post by virmundi »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #23
remon wrote: post #4

What an odd trend. First Netflix moves part of their infrastructure to Node ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8631022 ) and now Yahoo is doing something similar. Node.js is great but I don't think huge enterprise systems for some of the largest brands in the world are necessarily the best fit. I wish they'd provide some insights on why they're making that particular move.

I don't think they have mail storage, spooling and sending implemented in node.js. I think they use both PHP before and node.js now as a front tier. And this is okay, it's where node.js shines.

See, this confuses me. From working with Node and understanding its core architectural concept, the single event loop, I find Node's worst use case to be front end development.

Server side rendering takes time, even 10 ms. On an single event loop, that is terrible. You can only server 100 request/second due to the 10 ms limit. While it is nice that you can move a request into the backing queue while waiting for the data, you're capped at 100 requests/second.

Where I think Node shines is low level network management. Netflix could use it to pipe video data from one of its boxes out to a user. It's got that kind of work built right into it. As a result, I think that storage, spooling and possibly even sending would be best in Node. Those are largely I/O bound, schlep data from port to port operations.

My understanding of PHP is that it's really hard to have really global variables. Compare this to Node.js where Javascript naturally does this. I can't find it now, but I remember back when Node was young a guy had an issue with his shopping cart system. People's orders were screwed up. Turns out that he missed a `var` in a function. PHP, I don't think, could do this easily since the widest screw up scope is file. So you're still limited to request scoping.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#54

Post by davidw »

loxs wrote: post #49
general_failure wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What framework would you suggest server side?

Disclaimer: I am a full-time Erlang programmer I use several frameworks/libs for different tasks: Webmachine, N2O, Cowboy I don't believe in RoR type of frameworks. I believe in clear separation between server and client. We are steadily moving towards a web of websockets and "one page JS applications". Won't comment on whether that is nice thing or not. I am not sure for myself. For client we are stuck with JS. Suck…

As someone who knows their way around Erlang, it needs some work for more 'average joe' programmers to get much done with it. I'm not talking about the syntax, but some set of libraries or a framework or something that gets people up and running quickly. Chicago Boss is interesting, but it's not very Erlangy (it uses compiler magic).

Edit: that said, a big company would certainly have the resources to make Erlang work well for web development, and, yes, it's way more solid than Node.js from an architectural point of view.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#55

Post by fideloper »

The exciting part of this for me would be around improvements in Yahoo - removing old cruft code. There's lot of strangeness and/or flat out errors I run into on Yahoo regularly. Any improvement in that regard could be a big benefit.

On the topic of JavaScript - I love Node as a glue. For larger applications - I just don't know how to structure (architect) a large application on a language like JS. Maybe that's just my ignorance.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#56

Post by mhd »

throwawayaway wrote: post #27
loxs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few reasons: 1. Cooperative multitasking. Really? In 2014? Hello? 2. Weakest of weak typing. undefined is not a function? Anyone? 3. Everyone can override everything. 4. Conventions, that's the only way you can build software in JS. Anyone know of a person who doesn't break conventions? Having programmed in something like Erlang, which IMHO is the sanest technology available today for doing web, JS feels horrible.

I struggled to find anything I liked about javascript. Other than ease of deployment.

For enterprise companies the ability to move programmers around from frontend to backend (or demand that they're doing both at the same time) is probably a benefit.

Not a good idea, but that's rarely a hindrance for both enterprisey and startup "human resources" management. Reminds me a bit of how we treated torchbearers and henchmen in D&D...

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#57

Post by remon »

nkozyra wrote: post #19
remon wrote: post #4

What an odd trend. First Netflix moves part of their infrastructure to Node ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8631022 ) and now Yahoo is doing something similar. Node.js is great but I don't think huge enterprise systems for some of the largest brands in the world are necessarily the best fit. I wish they'd provide some insights on why they're making that particular move.

I'd say, more than anything, the benefit it provides is more personnel-related than anything. While there are definitely dedicated server-side and client side JS people, speaking the "same language" helps within teams and allows for some shared responsibilities. That's appealing to large organizations with decent turnover.

I think you've touched upon the strongest argument for using JavaScript within a server stack. That said, that argument seems less strong for companies the size of Netflix, Yahoo, and so on. They don't exactly have problems recruiting top engineers. Curious stuff.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#59

Post by virmundi »

mygreetings wrote: post #9

Little bit off topic but is there anyone like me in community having a problem with liking javascript? I have worked with javascript for years but it was always for DOM manipulation. When it comes to building an app with javascript, i feel like it is too fragile to depend on. Anyone can help me to get rid of this feeling?

I'm working on it now. https://leanpub.com/javascriptesbasuracaliente.

I don't think you can necessarily overcome the deep-seated knowledge that the language is hot garbage. You can learn to use tools to reduce it and understand the language enough to realize where its truly horrific spots.

Re: Yahoo Mail moving to React

#60

Post by mootothemax »

loxs wrote: post #49
general_failure wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What framework would you suggest server side?

Disclaimer: I am a full-time Erlang programmer I use several frameworks/libs for different tasks: Webmachine, N2O, Cowboy I don't believe in RoR type of frameworks. I believe in clear separation between server and client. We are steadily moving towards a web of websockets and "one page JS applications". Won't comment on whether that is nice thing or not. I am not sure for myself. For client we are stuck with JS. Suck…

Can you make some recommendations for Erlang IDEs?

What's your typical day-to-day setup, and what's your workflow look like?

I love Erlang and its concept, but the lack of friendly developer tools and easy testing put me off after the one successful (commercial) project I completed a couple of years ago.

I'm all geared up to become an Erlang evangelist (particularly for the reasons you give - Node.js really does feel like a toy in comparison), it's just the process of putting the code together feels painful compared to the tools I'm used to. (whether Visual Studio or PHPStorm or...)

If you can spend a few minutes discussing your setup, I would find it immensely useful.

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