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Node.js and the Road Ahead

112 points| fcambus | 12 years ago |blog.nodejs.org | reply

45 comments

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[+] selmnoo|12 years ago|reply
I really don't like that Joyent basically 'owns' nodejs. They gain from more people using nodejs and using it in a certain way; the complex dynamic happening here is a major turn-off (Joyent controls the nodejs repo). Not to mention the recent brouhaha in which Joyent facilitated forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors, an individual who incidentally happened to be an employee of their biggest competitor. Do you really want to use the products of this environment?
[+] Zikes|12 years ago|reply
Guys, guys, come on. We should respect their wishes to never talk about that again and forget the whole thing ever happened.[1]

I mean, it's not like they ought to apologize for the atrocious way they facilitated the virtual lynching of one of their core contributors. Better to just sweep it all under the rug.

[1] http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/

EDIT: For the folks that say it's just "petty drama", I invite you to read another man's account of a very similar experience: http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/6/5075106/adam-orth-xbox-one-...

Internet bullying isn't just some thing that happens to teenagers. It's a stream of tweets, phone calls, texts, hate mail, death threats, and more. I can only speculate about how much of that Ben received, but a fair share of it was very public, and Joyent was a participant in that.

As the face of node.js it was Joyent's responsibility to defuse the situation and protect the people involved. Instead they threw gasoline into the fire, further inciting the mob justice that was already well underway.

[+] matthewmacleod|12 years ago|reply
I expect that most people, like myself, want to use good development tools and platforms, rather than waste time getting involved in whatever petty drama happens to be going on.

Node is open-source, and if Joyent act like assholes, it'll be forked.

[+] daveslash|12 years ago|reply
" Not to mention the recent brouhaha in which Joyent facilitated forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors, an individual who incidentally happened to be an employee of their biggest competitor."

Who was that?

[+] sehr|12 years ago|reply
It's a repo, it can be forked at any moment if something goes awry. And I don't really think a misguided blog post is 'forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors'.

I'd rather have nice tools made possible by a company I disagreed with on petty grounds than no tools at all.

[+] rmrfrmrf|12 years ago|reply
1. There are SO MANY open source projects that are "owned" by companies. It's nothing new.

2. I'm so tired of hearing about the supposed "drama" of the NodeJS community from people who don't understand open source projects. For one, I checked the guy's github yesterday and he still contributes to node, so his "taking my ball and going home" bit was a bluff. More importantly, though, is the point that this person went out of his way to stop an open source contribution that he personally didn't agree with. He did, in effect, more work by declining the pull request and injecting his own beliefs into a community project.

I feel it needs to be said that I applaud Joyent's position on gender inclusiveness since we clearly have a LONG way to go to get people to start caring about issues like this.

[+] camus2|12 years ago|reply
NodeJS is an idea(and a trademark...) but there is no reason why it couldnt be ported to other envirronments like the JVM for instance. Joyent and a few other businesses own NodeJS development that's a fact,i'm curious as to how they will make money out of it.
[+] grannyg00se|12 years ago|reply
"the complex dynamic happening here is a major turn-off (Joyent controls the nodejs repo)"

Can you clarify what off-putting complex dynamic you're referring to?

[+] erichocean|12 years ago|reply
I predict that 0.10.x will be with us for a long time. It's now the Windows XP SP2 of Node.js releases. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes before Joyent refuses to accept patches to the 0.10.x branch. When they do, that'll be the point to seriously consider moving off of Node.js to a project with adults running it.

In addition to all of the political crap with Joyent, the changes in 0.12.x are incredibly onerous at the C++ level, for no obvious benefit whatsoever (thanks, v8 team). I know our company is sticking with 0.10.x for the indefinite future because we're not allocating man power to update the dozen or so compiled node modules we use (along with all of the new bugs changing that many changes will inevitably bring with it).

Instead, in the future we'll be dropping down to either libuv directly (all of our compiled libraries are written in C–C++ is just used to bind to Node.js), and we're also looking carefully at luvit, since Lua binds to C so nicely, and LuaJIT is seriously awesome. :)

So between Joyent forcing Ben Noordhuis out and their corporate "it's our way or the highway" bullshit, we just have a really bad taste in our mouths about the future of Node.js with Joyent at the helm.

[+] james33|12 years ago|reply
Apparently you've never gone through a major version update to a language.