Hacker News Reader

It would be foolhardy to answer your question, as someone would inevitably respond with another language that can do it.

I will say that NodeJS has inspired me to get off my ass and code a basic CRUD site, which could get me started and lead to more interesting features. Sure, could have used Python or anything else, but this is how it's going for now. I choose to drink this particular Kool-Aid for now.

Making server-side JS obvious & popular - that's something only Node.js was seemingly able to do :p

is there anything only one language can do? I believe both answers is a no. I think we should be asking 'is there something that is best done with node'

So what's done best with Node?

Asynchronous Event Based Web Servers? :X

Sure, alright, but that's supposed to mean faster servers and a smaller footprint, and since one or two people here mentioned that Node doesn't really live up to that, my question is: What does Node offer me in terms of speed and footprint that, say, nginx doesn't?

... which are used to build web pages sent through a synchronous, request-response protocol that is HTTP. I understand asynchronous events are used in GUI design, where you have actual asynchronous sources (e.g. mouse), but what are the benefits for a web page?