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Instead of just dismissing all Javascript backends, can you tell me why using Ruby is better than Javascript here?

Personally I do prefer Rails over something like Express too, but that's more of a personal preference. I don't see why todays Javascript backends are all "shit"?

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One answer: left-pad.

Seriously though, the language itself is a matter of preference, but you can’t dismiss that the ecosystem sucks. Projects with hundreds of packages in their dependency graph seem common. I’ve worked on a (front-end) React project with 1,7k packages involved in the build process. That’s madness.

I agree, left-pad was a mess, but while the huge amount of dependencies is the thing people most complain about, is it actually unique to Javascript? Looking at the Gemfile for this project, it seems like you're also going to have to install hundreds of gems if you want to get this up and running.

That's react's fault more than anything. Use Mithril.js and reduce that number to only a few.

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