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What is Meteor.js?

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Re: What is Meteor.js?

#31

Post by kaoD »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #27
kaoD wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, why use it (Node.js) on the server? Its not even that fast Not only it's still reasonably fast (21st is great, it's mostly surpassed only by C and Java), but it also has a much better ecosystem than most platforms (especially C and Java), it's faster to develop in (especially C and Java) and shares language with client side. Sharing a common codebase is very important for me. I found in most of my web project…

I agree it is reasonably fast. I don't agree its ecosystem is better than Javas, neither in size nor in quality. Same language is an advantage, so is development speed, I agree. But: C++, Java, Lua, Ur, Go, Ruby and Erlang are all faster than JS, and especially Ruby is a much nicer language. I don't hate Node.js, it has its sweet spots and the tooling feels nice and lightweight, but its not (yet) a very good general…

> C++, Java, Lua, Ur, Go, Ruby and Erlang are all faster than JS

Wrong column. You're looking at languages, but a language does not affect performance: its platform does. E.g., the only Ruby benchmark which is faster than Node is actually JRuby, i.e. Java.

> and especially Ruby is a much nicer language

That's a matter of preference. I don't like Ruby myself (nor most languages encouraging classes as their primary constructs).

You shouldn't evaluate languages, but platforms.

> but its not (yet) a very good general purpose tool

Why? I mean, no tool is a very good general purpose tool, but what makes NodeJS worse as a tool than, say, Ruby?

> I don't want to be the guy who has to maintain that callback hell 5 years from now.

Neither do I. That's why I don't use JavaScript for anything else than a target language. You seem to like ES6, why don't you use it and transpile it to plain JS?

Platforms, not languages.

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#32

Post by TimJRobinson »

Has anyone here built a large, production grade app with meteor? Something that makes money and is more than just a tech demo?

I see a lot of people playing around with it and building tech demo's but very few examples of it being used for anything more than that.

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#33

Post by dragonwriter »

kaoD wrote: post #31
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it is reasonably fast. I don't agree its ecosystem is better than Javas, neither in size nor in quality. Same language is an advantage, so is development speed, I agree. But: C++, Java, Lua, Ur, Go, Ruby and Erlang are all faster than JS, and especially Ruby is a much nicer language. I don't hate Node.js, it has its sweet spots and the tooling feels nice and lightweight, but its not (yet) a very good general…

> C++, Java, Lua, Ur, Go, Ruby and Erlang are all faster than JS Wrong column. You're looking at languages, but a language does not affect performance: its platform does. E.g., the only Ruby benchmark which is faster than Node is actually JRuby, i.e. Java. > and especially Ruby is a much nicer language That's a matter of preference. I don't like Ruby myself (nor most languages encouraging classes as their primary con…

> You're looking at languages, but a language does not affect performance: its platform does.

Both language and platform affect performance, otherwise JRuby would be the same speed as native Java, which is not the case.

> E.g., the only Ruby benchmark which is faster than Node is actually JRuby, i.e. Java.

Which still means that Ruby (as a language, using the JRuby implementation) can be faster than Node (assuming the benchmark at issue is meaningful at all.)

> That's a matter of preference. Anyways, you shouldn't evaluate languages, but platforms.

Since you actually need to choose languages to use, you absolutely should evaluate them. You should, of course, also evaluate platforms since you need to choose those, too (and part of evaluating languages is evaluating the constraints language choices put on platform choices, and vice versa.)

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#34

Post by sciurus »

justinsb wrote: post #20
sarciszewski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still piping untrusted code to sh. Please implement asymmetric cryptographic signature verification (i.e. PGP).

I'm not sure what PGP would buy us over everything going over https from sites under Meteor's control? Cryptographic verification is great when you want to deliver the bulk of the content over http, or via untrusted mirrors, but we're not doing that. However, if you want greater assurance, Meteor is open source, and easy to run from a git checkout. That seems to solve even more problems than PGP would, though then yo…

PGP would get you a lot. See this discussion for why https "only helps in a small way and is not enough to provide users with a reasonable level of trust that it's safe to use your software."

https://github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/issues/3105#issuecomment...

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#35

Post by tonyjstark »

I programmed 2 small apps now with Meteor and my learning is that if you want to prototype something fast you can use it but if you want to have something polished afterwards then don't expect to save time by using it instead of other tools. It has its quirks...

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#36

Post by kaoD »

dragonwriter wrote: post #33
kaoD wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C++, Java, Lua, Ur, Go, Ruby and Erlang are all faster than JS Wrong column. You're looking at languages, but a language does not affect performance: its platform does. E.g., the only Ruby benchmark which is faster than Node is actually JRuby, i.e. Java. > and especially Ruby is a much nicer language That's a matter of preference. I don't like Ruby myself (nor most languages encouraging classes as their primary con…

> You're looking at languages, but a language does not affect performance: its platform does. Both language and platform affect performance, otherwise JRuby would be the same speed as native Java, which is not the case. > E.g., the only Ruby benchmark which is faster than Node is actually JRuby, i.e. Java. Which still means that Ruby (as a language, using the JRuby implementation) can be faster than Node (assuming th…

> Both language and platform affect performance, otherwise JRuby would be the same speed as native Java, which is not the case.

No. JRuby is the platform, that's why JRuby is not the same speed as native Java.

But CoffeeScript has the same speed as plain JavaScript, because both are running over the same platform (NodeJS) even if they're different languages.

It just happens JRuby can only run a single language (Ruby).

> Which still means that Ruby (as a language, using the JRuby implementation) can be faster than Node (assuming the benchmark at issue is meaningful at all.)

Ruby is neither fast nor slow. Languages don't have speed.

> Since you actually need to choose languages to use, you absolutely should evaluate them.

Of course, but you shouldn't evaluate languages on their speed, because then you're measuring something completely unrelated to the language. You can measure platform speed (and the constraints they put on languages you can choose), not the other way around.

---

So, to sum it up, software engineering is all about compromises. Dismissing NodeJS because it ranks 21st in a benchmark is a bit shortsighted.

Of course Java and C are going to beat JS at speed, but... do you want to deal with Java's interfacing mess? Do you want to deal with C's manual memory management? I certainly don't. Especially for a web app.

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#37

Post by methehack »

Haters gotta hate.

The framework is brilliant from a productivity and sheer enjoyment perspective. I don't know if it will scale; you don't either. My estimation, though, is that the team building it is very clever and super-aware of what they need to do to make the framework succeed from a scaling perspective.

A lot of the comments here are spitballs from the back row of the classroom. They are willfully uninformed and unfair. It is hard to imagine these commenters are paying much attention during the learning portion of class.

So go forth, meteor team. You're fighting a great fight here. Ignore the naysayers and do the great work you know you can do. Your best way forward is to prove the haters wrong. Maybe a few will even become lovers, though I wouldn't count on it. If you build it, they may come. [update to spell 'perspective' correctly. Ugh]

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#38

Post by marknow »

I'm a webdev at an agency, and Meteor looks great from a prototyping perspective. Javascript is already a key component of much of our work, so this framework could help us roll out concepts much faster than we're doing now... looking forward to learning more about Meteor!

Re: What is Meteor.js?

#40

Post by Rezo »

I'm surprised at all the negativity. Advocating C++/Java instead of Meteor/Node.js makes about as much sense in my opinion as comparing 18-wheeler trucks to Smart cars, and I wonder if the people who do so have really worked with the latter or are just dismissing it out of hand. The right tool for the job and all that, and you want your toolbox to be comprehensive, right? No serious craftsman ever said "Wrenches? Oh, we're a strictly pliers-only shop".

At my company, we have critical API services with SLA's that will cost us $$$ if broken. We develop on the JVM with Scala, the number of currently open bugs can be counted on one hand, with millions of daily users. But some of the dashboards for monitoring the service are Node.js. Want a new fancy gauge on that board that measures X by interacting with API Y? There's probably a NPM module for that, so give me 30 minutes, OK? I see that the web frontend serving is increasingly being done in Node as well, because it's a good fit for that environment.

Don't get married to your platform! Try many things, and figure out where on the spectrum the tools fit and use them where appropriate. I've done many years of C++ server and embedded development, but working with Meteor just gives me the biggest dumb grin. It's fun!

Node is the fastest growing ecosystem today, and it's not because everyone using it are idiots. Meteor takes that energy and kicks the out-of-box productivity up to 11. Java/Scala/Go/C++ are and will continue to be the workhorses of the Internet when performance and stability are of the utmost importance. So, no matter where on the platform spectrum you're currently on, go check out what's happening at the other end!

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