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I finally escaped Node

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Re: I finally escaped Node

#91

Post by Jiocus »

holografix wrote: post #69

Right now I’m trying to unit test an API on node that does a database query. I’m using express, mocha, supertest and typeorm. Mocking the database is fucking black magic. So I gave up and simply use an in memory SQLite db and add some records in the test body for my API to fetch and return so I can test. I’d like the db to basically get nuked and recreated after every test. So I use “afterEach” to close the connectio…

Maybe not relevant to your issue, but sqlite in-memory databases can be tricky. IIRC closing the connection wipes it out. Creating a new connection means creating a new fresh database.

Tried it on-disk?

Re: I finally escaped Node

#92

Post by tannhaeuser »

sradman wrote: post #64
tannhaeuser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No web Gateway Interface like WSGI and Rack Node.js wasn't created in a vacuum. Its http lib, and express.js which extends it (and Sencha connect before that) implements part of the CommonJs API created by earlier SSJS frameworks such as Narwhal, Helma, etc. and was inspired by Ruby's Sinatra. In fact, a common portable API and standardized language that isn't going away anytime soon (JavaScript) is what draw me to…

It was my understanding that Node never implemented JGSI [1]. I've never compared the two APIs so you may be correct. Regardless of the path taken, the middleware should apply to a separate web server module that is functional by default. The tight coupling that emerged was too hard to master and the defaults are too attack prone to inspire quick public deploys. It resulted in copy-and-paste server-code between proje…

> middleware should apply to a separate web server module that is functional by default. The tight coupling that emerged was too hard to master and the defaults are too attack prone to inspire quick public deploys. It resulted in copy-and-paste server-code between projects rather than reusable server modules. ... did not outpace ... GIL ...

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The beauty in Node.js' http lib is that you can write middlewares against the core API and run the same code under express.js with additional middlewares for sessions, routing, etc. Python, whatever its strengths, certainly isn't used for web apps more than Node.js, let alone is dominant. Re modules and reuse, I guess if one side is complaining about too much modularity (leftpad) while the other doesn't see enough of it, Node.js got it just right ;)

Edit: CommonJs directly references JSGI [1], and if you compare it to Node.js' http core or express.js' API, you can see the correspondence quite obviously, can't you?

[1]: http://wiki.commonjs.org/wiki/JSGI

Re: I finally escaped Node

#93

Post by blandflakes »

7Uzyd7H80egR wrote: post #59
Jeema101 wrote: post #56

I'm not a node.js programmer by trade, so maybe I have this all wrong, but I thought the main selling point of the language was that it is fast. The thing is, everything in computer science comes with a tradeoff: the tradeoff in this case seems to be that, in gaining speed, now you are sacrificing a layer of abstraction that would normally be hidden by the operating system. What I mean by that is that instead of just…

Yeah, I think that's not quite right. I think the main selling point of Node has always been that it's Javascript and thus you can use the same language, and people, to do both frontend and backend development. Node is not fast and it's not trying to compete with compiled language in that regard.

FWIW I have _heard_ the pitch that node.js is fast, here on HN and elsewhere, but most times it's fast compared to like... Ruby. Which is fine, but that's not the only competition in town for node.js.

Re: I finally escaped Node

#94

Post by debrice »

It’s really hard to read such posts. The tool is only as good as the contributor, that’s all there is. Great things were built in all languages and frameworks. For god sakes, stop blaming the tool by doing naive comparisons with other languages/framework. Nothing’s perfect, that’s a given, but these kinds of post smells so much like entitlement. You don’t need to trash your previous framework/language and discourage others. If you struggled using node don’t fool yourself that it was because of the tool and try to do the hard work of introspection and understand why you failed.

Disclaimer: In case you think I’m bias toward node, I’m more of a python fast API guy, but I have tremendous respect toward NodeJS performance and async elegance (and even more when mixed with typescript)

Re: I finally escaped Node

#95

Post by rockyj »

brainwipe wrote: post #63
rockyj wrote: post #20

From the title, I was expecting the article on something along the lines of how, where and why developers can move from Node.js. However the arguments are not so solid and there is no migration path. We all know Elixir is great but the adoption and maturity is low as compared to JS. Yes, Node is not perfect but (with TypeScript added) tell me a development platform that can run under 100 MB of memory, handle most req…

.NET Core can certainly run in well under 100MB, handle requests under 50ms and get running quickly under load. You also have async/await and type safety, scales horizontally. It's not JS/TS, so the skills are different and that's not idea but if you're in TS and squint, you're looking at C#. Also far from perfect but I do think it's now a viable option as a replacement for node.

Thanks for sharing this. I plan / hope to look into C#/.Net Core if life permits.

Re: I finally escaped Node

#96

Post by conradfr »

I'm still astonished that someone was writing Javascript on the browser and found the experience so great that he thought "I also want to do it on the backend!".

More seriously, I'll admit I'm not a competent Node dev but the worst part for me is how convoluted you have to write large parts of code that don't need to be asynchronous or non-blocking in the first place. I also never figured why sometimes Node just silently ends without pointing my syntax error (and more importantly the line number).

Like the author, in my mind Elixir is a better Node (Go never clicked for me).

Some weeks ago I had to write a feature that was so perfect for Phoenix Channels, Presence etc that it was almost magical and quite fun. Nothing groundbreaking but I wrote about it here https://conradfr.github.io/ProgRadio/

Re: I finally escaped Node

#97

Post by rockyj »

blandflakes wrote: post #76
rockyj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, pretty much any modern web framework. So my original point still stands :)

Your original point was that node.js has an edge because it has something nobody else has - low memory footprint, low latency, quick time-to-market, scalable. If the response is that "any modern web framework"can do it, then your point does not stand at all.

Sorry, communication gap. I was only referring to the part -

"> can spin up a http service in a day

Surely this is a typo?"

I thought we were contesting that point only.

I agree that a lot of frameworks can do that. On top Node/JS also allow developers to do web/native(ish with RN) and desktop apps with great tooling, libs etc. this combo is hard to beat.

Re: I finally escaped Node

#98

Post by bschwindHN »

cygned wrote: post #19

We went away from node as a backend technology for a bunch of reasons. Here's a list of the biggest pain points: - Lack of a good standard API; compared to environments like Java, C# or Go, node's standard library is significantly sparse. - The tendency for small libraries/frameworks leads to a very high number of third party code with all the problems attached; bigger attack surface, licensing challenges, it's econo…

I got really into Node for a backend around 2015. I loved it, its execution was fast enough, I could speed through feature implementations, it was so much easier to build things compared to the 5 million line Java project from my previous employer.

Then a not-so-competent team member joined and it made working in JS complete hell. I had to be so much more careful on code reviews because there was no compiler to catch common mistakes, and still issues slipped through.

TypeScript is here now and that's great, it solves some of the issues I mentioned, but I moved on to Rust (and stopped doing web stuff for the most part) and I'll trade my implementation speed for easier code reviews and majorly reduced debugging time.

Re: I finally escaped Node

#100

Post by MangoCoffee »

conradfr wrote: post #96

I'm still astonished that someone was writing Javascript on the browser and found the experience so great that he thought "I also want to do it on the backend!". More seriously, I'll admit I'm not a competent Node dev but the worst part for me is how convoluted you have to write large parts of code that don't need to be asynchronous or non-blocking in the first place. I also never figured why sometimes Node just sile…

>I'm still astonished that someone was writing Javascript on the browser and found the experience so great that he thought "I also want to do it on the backend!".

I'm currently playing and learning Microsoft Blazor server side. i like the appeal of writing the whole app that feel like a Single Page Application in one language. whether that's good or bad is another matter.

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