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Comment by dsun179 | Hacker News Reader

Wow. What a way to describe the tradeoff of a programming language. No, thanks

JavaScript is a programming language. NodeJS is not. It's the substrate that the NPM ecosystem runs on.

choeger's comment very well may have not been made with a distinction in mind (and I agree that it was a low effort, low signal comment), but the distinction exists.

choeger seems to be using Firefox. Firefox is implemented using an Emacs-like architecture. The Firefox codebase includes millions of lines of JS, and that's been the case since before the language was JITted. I ran Firefox 1.0, 2.5, and 2.0 on an 800MHz PIII with 128 MB (later 192 MB, wow-wee!) of RAM. The JS in the Firefox codebase wasn't written in the NodeJS style, and if it were, that would have made it a non-starter.

Kneejerk JS haters are tiring, but so is the conflation of JS and the NodeJS ecosystem (by NodeJS supporters and NodeJS haters alike).

(Side note: if you insist on giving attention to folks engaged in low-value discussions, try to elevate the conversation to a level that makes it actually worth having.)

These days, using JavaScript outside of the browser sort of implies Node.js, in the same way that using Python implies that you're using CPython, unless you specify otherwise. In theory your distinction makes sense, but in practice, very few people are using anything but Node.js for backend JavaScript systems (at least for new projects).

Okay. Let's consider your comment within the context of the discussion taking place. What's your point?

We're discussing an application written in JavaScript that runs outside a browser. So the point is that it is unsurprising to discuss node. It's like if we discussed writing a network app in Python and someone said that the GIL was a problem. Technically, there are python implementations that don't have that problem, but in practice we would almost certainly be talking about something that would have been using cpython, so it's relevant.

Two things:

First, this is very much being developed in a similar scope the millions of lines of JS that are in Firefox. This is going into Beaker. See beakerbrowser.com. Just as a point of fact.

Secondly, you still haven't connected your observations to the discussion! That observation amounts to, hey, there's lots of JS written for the NodeJS ecosystem—most of it is, really. And once again, my response is, "Okay, so it exists. So what?" I'm truly struggling to understand the significance of the comments here. Like, what if anything is that supposed to change? What is anyone supposed to do with that information? Is it supposed to change someone's mind? Is it supposed to change mine? And if so, in reference to what specifically? Is it even new information?

The most meaningful thing that I can manage to parse is where you say "the point is that it is unsurprising to discuss node". But whoever said it was surprising? Do you think I'm surprised? choeger mentioned NodeJS by name. My comment is evidence of a nuanced understanding of NodeJS. Where's the surprise?

> It's like if we discussed writing a network app in Python and someone said that the GIL was a problem. Technically, there are python implementations that don't have that problem, but in practice we would almost certainly be talking about something that would have been using cpython, so it's relevant.

Not 'technically' at all. If it's normal python code, and the GIL is the problem, then you can change the interpreter and still use the code. But for something built on node, you can't just pull out node.

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