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Comment by blandflakes | Hacker News Reader

Your original point was that node.js has an edge because it has something nobody else has - low memory footprint, low latency, quick time-to-market, scalable. If the response is that "any modern web framework"can do it, then your point does not stand at all.

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Sorry, communication gap. I was only referring to the part -

"> can spin up a http service in a day

Surely this is a typo?"

I thought we were contesting that point only.

I agree that a lot of frameworks can do that. On top Node/JS also allow developers to do web/native(ish with RN) and desktop apps with great tooling, libs etc. this combo is hard to beat.

It seems to me that a lot of frameworks can also do the other things! Even Java (though not for a lot of entrenched codebases) has frameworks sporting millisecond startup times and latencies nowadays, with very low time-to-develop.

I would also bicker that node.js is not that easy to scale horizontally, at least not notably easier to do so than any other single-threaded runtime.

IMO the only edges that node.js has are:

* some people know javascript

* for a dynamic language, the runtime is quite performant - you get more for your core, and that's cool

* I agree with the ideal that you can run the same language on the front and backend, but I have found in practice that two things are true. First, that they are actually different languages, with different runtimes and libraries. Second, the holy grail of e.g. serverside rendering your react app and having the browser take over represents a miniscule minority of JS deployments.

Nothing here means node.js is a bad platform, obviously, but it also is a platform I would only choose because I knew JS and was working with others who knew JS, or I was REALLY committed to the dream of isomorphic Javascript. It doesn't have any characteristics that would cause me to suggest non-JS developers go learn node.js.

I think the confusion is around the phrase "spin up," which usually refers to the starting of a process or machine. I think what you meant is that developers can write an HTTP service in a day--referring to the speed of development for Node.js.

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