GitHub Completes Its Acquisition Of The NPM JavaScript/Node.js Package Manager

[utopik]

Hopefully they bought it so they could nuke it off the face of the Earth.

Why all this hate about JavaScript and Node.JS ? Any developer or team should choose their tools following their needs and the level of productivity they want to achieve. Implementing an API with Node.js is undoubtly far more elegant, less bug prones, and far more productive than with C/C++. Want to run code in a browser ? You have no choice than using JavaScript. Need performance in some parts of you application ? Use WASM or a node native module.

Please be kind with all developers, we all have things to learn from each other.

[pracedru]

MS is the Borg.
They consume everything.
resistance is futile.

[Emmanuel Deloget]

Why all this hate about JavaScript and Node.JS ? Any developer or team should choose their tools following their needs and the level of productivity they want to achieve. Implementing an API with Node.js is undoubtly far more elegant, less bug prones, and far more productive than with C/C++. Want to run code in a browser ? You have no choice than using JavaScript. Need performance in some parts of you application ? Use WASM or a node native module.

Please be kind with all developers, we all have things to learn from each other.

JS is necessary for client-side code, but that should never be the case for server-side code. The whole JS paradigm makes it unsuitable for server-side code - Node.js + JS probably the most environment-unfriendly(*) server-side combo you can imagine at the moment. How many instances would you use to serve github if it was based upon Node.js ? Facebook? How much power would you drain to serve your users and customers? How much would it cost you?

This is even not a good prototyping environment - because prototypes tend to find their way to production way too much often (i.e. always) and this is clearly NOT what you want.

(*) even if you think the climate change is not man-made, you have to agree that this is an avoidable waste of ressources, don't you?

[kpedersen]

Want to run code in a browser ? You have no choice than using JavaScript.

This isn't true. The only reason why decent games have started to arrive on the browser is because developers can finally get away from Javascript. Compilers such as Emscripten (C/C++ to WASM/ASM.JS) are a godsend for writing proper code.

And frankly, Javascript isn't necessarily the issue. It is the culture of Javascript developers to drag in so many dependencies rather than just do things themselves. Reinventing the wheel in this case takes less time than integrating a buggy library from NPM that doesn't quite do what you want.
Hopefully the inevitable destruction of NPM by Microsoft will get these kinds of developers to think twice before pulling in more shite to their codebase.

(Not all Javascript developers are bad. It is probably most likely due to the fact that a low barrier of entry attracts beginners, which isn't a bad thing! What the industry shouldn't do is mutate towards this kind of development though).

[woprandi]

Node.js is great. It keeps all the hype-train brainlets away from serious projects.

It's NPM, not nodejs. Yarn is much better

[Jabberwocky]

I don't like it when one company buys so many smaller companies. I miss waffle.io, Cloud9 IDE and old school whatsapp.

JS is necessary for client-side code, but that should never be the case for server-side code. The whole JS paradigm makes it unsuitable for server-side code - Node.js + JS probably the most environment-unfriendly(*) server-side combo you can imagine at the moment. How many instances would you use to serve github if it was based upon Node.js ? Facebook? How much power would you drain to serve your users and customers? How much would it cost you?

The modern world is making me seem like I extremely pro-planning and pro-perfection opposed to pro-practical. Many teams use the Pareto Principle to just get things done and ignore important parts. It's very challenging to explain to people the dangers of this. The agile development methodology is getting butchered and Robert "uncle bob" Martin agrees[1].

It is true that JS paradigm has really really bad parts to it, some are so bad that it's hilarious. Many people know this. I particularly dislike yarn and never want to touch it again, but that does not prevent me from noticing how fast and efficiently some nodejs backends run. The crazy hacks inside V8 allows skilled developers to be much more productive at writing optimized code in js. You can look at the asm that V8 produces and optimizes according to that. I have done this, it's very easy to makes things really fast. It's not easy to keep it fast when you changing things and it extremely difficult to debug some issues which can be a massive waste of time, but that's not the point. Take a look at https://www.mattzeunert.com/2015/08/...ted-by-v8.html

asm.js is a bit of a cheat, but it goes to show what javascript interpreters like V8 is capable of. The language design might be a joke but the performance of it is certainly not a joke and we have learned a lot from javascript that have been adopted into lower level languages.

Your argument about climate change is a valid and real concern, but in my opinion the problem is not related to specific computer language. It is a project management and cultural problem. People are forgetting about the past and ignoring planning phases because it's too much work.

I personally think that something worse than JS could have dominated the web, imagine if flash-player won... Looking forward I would choose wasm over js for client or server code, but realistically it's going to take time to change even if everyone else wanted it. Alan Turing said (something like) the field of programming is going to require skilled mathematicians and at the moment the field is shifting to being dominated by college drop-outs or some that could not make it to college. I'm not saying people are stupid that don't go to college or university. I'm just pointing out the average education/knowledge levels.

Completely off-topic: While we have to do everything we can to prevent CO2 emissions, trouble in rainforests and even crypto mining are much bigger problems at the moment.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc

[starshipeleven]

Why all this hate about JavaScript and Node.JS ?

Same as it is for Java or PHP. The language is meh, but the issue is that too much morons use it wrong, or use it exclusively (so it's doing anything from embedded to server roles).

[Vistaus]

Well it is MS. Throwing billions at shiny toys and then completely losing interest in them is what they do best.

I think you're confusing MS with Google.

[starshipeleven]

I think you're confusing MS with Google.

Why not both?

[Vistaus]

Why not both?

Because Google is usually the one wasting money on project that they know are going to fail or know beforehand that they will lose interest one day. Sure, there are MS examples of that as well, but less so than from Google.