"I/O has been done wrong for the last 30 years,” he said, referring to the fact that Node.js allows servers to react to specific events."
This statement shows how hype-oriented this team is. Node.js hasn't invented anything new. On top of that, it reimplemented 30 year old concepts badly.
I don't want to start a language war, but a simple comparison of Erlang (which is 20 years old) and Node.js will send this point home:
I think Node.js is neat but could someone tell me how it's so awesome.
When Rails came it was truly awesome because the language it used and the framework was so much easier to work with then Java or .Net and some would say better designed then Perl or PHP.
I don't see how Node.js makes developing so much easier than say Rails (unless of course you have a crazy high IO kind of app, which most don't)
Don't compare Erlang to Node.js. Erlang is not a good implementation of evented servers. I'm not saying that Erlang is a bad implementation of evented servers, I'm saying that Erlang doesn't implement the evented architecture at all. Instead Erlang with its lightweight processes is more similar to the plain old 1-thread-per-IO-channel worker model except Erlang can spawn many more processes than the OS can spawn OS threads. Not that there's anything wrong with this; Erlang's processes are so lightweight that you can essentially get the same amount of scalability as evented servers.
The advantage of Node.js over Erlang is that it makes scalable I/O available in a mainstream high-level language. I do not call Erlang mainstream. Although I do think Node.js is a bit overhyped; Ruby's EventMachine and Python's Twisted provide similar functionality, and in particular EventMachine is extremely well-written.
This looks like a very popular new business model for the startups. Take any existing or upcoming langugage/framework like php, RoR, django, node.js etc. etc. and start creating a dedicated hosted platform for that a la Heroku. And start counting the money flowing in.
Just doing a "git commit; git push; cap deploy" on your own app and feeling confident in the outcome is not an insignificant amount of work. I can't imagine what it would be like to take an upcoming environment and create a platform around it to let anyone deploy, run and be backed-up without thinking.
So, if you can pull this off and make it look easy, then take my money.
[+] [-] j2d2j2d2|15 years ago|reply
This statement shows how hype-oriented this team is. Node.js hasn't invented anything new. On top of that, it reimplemented 30 year old concepts badly.
I don't want to start a language war, but a simple comparison of Erlang (which is 20 years old) and Node.js will send this point home:
1) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3887433/advantages-of-erl...
2) http://journal.dedasys.com/2010/04/29/erlang-vs-node-js
[+] [-] va_coder|15 years ago|reply
When Rails came it was truly awesome because the language it used and the framework was so much easier to work with then Java or .Net and some would say better designed then Perl or PHP.
I don't see how Node.js makes developing so much easier than say Rails (unless of course you have a crazy high IO kind of app, which most don't)
[+] [-] FooBarWidget|15 years ago|reply
The advantage of Node.js over Erlang is that it makes scalable I/O available in a mainstream high-level language. I do not call Erlang mainstream. Although I do think Node.js is a bit overhyped; Ruby's EventMachine and Python's Twisted provide similar functionality, and in particular EventMachine is extremely well-written.
[+] [-] piotrSikora|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g123g|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbsabelli|15 years ago|reply
So, if you can pull this off and make it look easy, then take my money.
[+] [-] beck5|15 years ago|reply
(I am aware node and rails are not direct substitutes)