Popular JavaScript Package Manager Npm Raises $8M, Launches Private Modules
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
And I'd say there's a 50/50 chance node will completely collapse within 10 years or so. And that's being generous, javascript is a controversial language and the standards committee moves very slowly. I honestly can't see it staying king once browsers can support other languages. You only have to see how fast Ruby was a darling and even now might be regarded on its swan song, less than 10 years later. Tech changes, the next big language will hit soon.
Congratulations to them and all that, and great product, I'm just wondering if someone can explain the sense in investing so much money into something like this? As this seems an incredibly risky venture?
Theres no way this happens anytime soon. Google already tried that with Dart and it failed.
Internet Explorer does not include any native scripting
functionality. Rather, MSHTML.dll exposes an API that
permit a programmer to develop a scripting environment
to be plugged-in and to access the DOM tree. Internet
Explorer 8 includes the bindings for the Active
Scripting engine, which is a part of Microsoft Windows
and allows any language implemented as an Active
Scripting module to be used for client-side scripting.
By default, only the JScript and VBScript modules are
provided; third party implementations like
ScreamingMonkey (for ECMAScript 4 support) can also be
used. Microsoft also makes available the Microsoft
Silverlight runtime (not supported in Windows RT) that
allows CLI languages, including DLR-based dynamic
languages like IronPython and IronRuby, to be used for
client-side scripting.Also, Dart just works fine. Inside browsers as JavaScript and outside browsers in its own VM.
This was written in Dart, for example: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2015/04/new-adsense-performance-...
You really don't have to use JS if you don't want to.
Additionally, neither JavaScript or Ruby is nearing their "swan song". Other languages will come out. The current languages will persist.
If they invest in 10 companies built on Node and therefore NPM they are investing in 11 companies by investing in NPM. They are purchasing security of their open source tools.
As for Node.JS dying, anything is possible I guess. PHP is still a monster and I don't think I'll ever understand why that happened completely. Node.js has a good story to tell and from my exp. a lot of PHP / frontend developers found easier transitions to Node.JS than other languages / stacks.
And isn't Ruby also controversial? At least it seems like people either really like it or don't like it. Everyone I have talked to seems to agree that the only reason Ruby really took off is due to Rails.
By what metric, your personal preference?
Because the common statistics[1][2][3] don't quite support your remark.
And I'd say there's a 50/50 chance node will completely collapse within 10 years or so.
Again, just making random stuff up?
As much as I'd love for javascript to disappear, the idea of that happening within a decade is nothing short of ridiculous.
[3] https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=ruby%2C%20rails%2C%2...
In TIOBE index of programming language popularity (based on web searches), Ruby is ranked 18th, down from 11th in April 2014. It fluctuates, but the trend is downward - 14th in November 2014, 13th in November 2013 and 11th in January 2013. Javascript is still rising.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....
It is supported by overall job trends (vs those for ycombinator-backed startups and github popularity)
http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2015/...
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Ruby%2C+Rails%2C+javascrip...
The TIOBE method is rather meaningless below rank 10 (and probably above, too). The delta between spot 10 and spot 20 in their ladder is a mere 1.1 points (of 100).
Do you really believe Delphi and ABAP are more popular than Ruby, as their table claims?
It is supported by overall job trends
Huh? In both of your linked charts Ruby is trending upwards.
I don't disagree with the rest of your points, just pointing out that the enterprise world is much larger than most developers would anticipate.
So to me it's all a bit risky, a bit of a punt, and so I'm asking, what am I not seeing, where's the market they're betting on?
But your profile says:
>", begrudgingly beginning to accept the browsers are never going to give us the freedom to choose."
It looks like you've got some cognitive dissonance happening there. :-)
In any case, I can't think of any example in computing history where a language that's adopted by multiple companies is then abandoned for another language. In Javascript's case, it would require that Microsoft IE AND Apple Safari AND Google Chrome AND Mozilla FF AND countless other web browsers (Opera, embedded, etc) switch to something else in lockstep. In the decades of computing history, I've never seen that type coordination ever happen.
Similar language entrenchment on the scale of Javascript would be something like SQL and C++.
SQL (1974) is implemented by Oracle/Microsoft/MySql/PostgreSQL/HiveHadoop/etc. A better query language could be designed (e.g. syntax of tables first then columns). However, it's just theoretical because you can't get all database vendors to adopt it lockstep. We are stuck with SQL for the next 50 years.
C++ (1983) entrenchment also can't be dislodged. It is implemented by the well-known big-3 of GCC, Clang, and Microsoft but you also have independent compiler implementations from Intel, HP, Sun, IBM, embedded chips, etc. The newer systems languages such as D and Rust are interesting but they will not get adopted and implemented by all those vendors. It's just not going to happen.
Look to the multi-decade history of SQL and C++/C and that's the depth of entrenchment you're looking at for Javascript. Better designed languages have not overcome the inertia in the industry and we have no evidence so far that it ever will. Therefore, Javascript will be with us for the next 50+ years.
Probably the best chance for making Javascript irrelevant was the brief plugins movement of Java applets, Adobe Flash, and MS Silverlight. Well, the marketplace of ideas (mobile phones) killed all of those off. What's left standing is Javascript.
But now it doesn't get abandoned, it just needs someone to crack using it as an assembly language.
Who knows.
But that's my point.
I'd assume they continue to launch more services as time goes on.
It started for node.js then someone did browserify which IMHO makes the best package manager for front end developers, there is some people using it even for C. Typescript/coffescript/css whatever. If you see the home page of npm it says "npm is the package manager for:" and the word keeps changing with a lot of use cases.
I think JavaScript has a bright future still, but in addition to that can npm or the ideas survive the language and be used in other contexts?
Wow, way to be real assertive with that statement. Hedging your bets for a prediction that won't really matter in 10 years.
I am not sure why you think ruby is dead considering the amount of Rails apps and the ecosystem that surrounds it.
If you read about their seed round, one reason investors invested is because a lot of other companies rely on npm/node. So their thinking process is that even if npm is not profitable, it at least makes their other investments more robust by making something that other companies rely on much stronger.
There are 140,362 total packages (where github was in 2010-2011) on NPM and 21 million repositories on Github now. Javascript is growing, NPM is the hub for all things javascript, so as long as things keep going the way they are, I don't think it is a stretch that NPM can be making that Github money.
A huge % of individual programmers want private source control as a quick and easy backup of their code. It is also completely language agnostic and will only fall into jeopardy if a new, better source control system comes out (and then they subsequently don't support it).
That is not the case with npm and never will be.
Well browser support for other languages will only come in the form of things transpiling to JS or subsets of JS. It seems unlikely that whole other runtimes would ever become a thing. I mean look at Dart.
There are two types of languages: those that everybody complains about, and those that nobody uses.
Also, a slow standards committee is a good thing for languages, as it prevents the natural cancerous tendencies of PL wonks--just look at C++ or Scala.
It's been awesome to finally get back to using semver to manage all our dependencies. Our build server automatically publishes to our private repo on a successful build.
I think that a lot of companies will find this service extremely helpful and a lot cheaper than having an employee spend the time to try to set up a private repository locally.
What "npm-compatible" package did you end up going with? Assume you're not doing the couchdb mirror, which I really don't want to do again either, so I'm curious if this is a low-dependency sort of thing.
+1 re new stuff. npm v3 has some rad de-duplication stuff on the way.
I doubt that npm would be very strategic -- but first you would have to answer the question of whether node.js itself is strategic.
There's certainly an element free publicity among developers. How much is that worth?
We are not and have not been the stewards of node.js to convert node.js developers into paying Joyent customers; rather, we became the stewards because we employed Ryan Dahl at the time (summer 2010), we were (and are) avid and early users of node.js ourselves, and we saw that node.js needed corporate stewardship. The node.js community has come a long way since then, of course, and earlier this year we announced our intention of moving node.js into a foundation -- which is now well underway.
In terms of how node.js fits into our business, we have always been upfront that we have never monetized node.js directly: to the extent we have monetized it, it has been by offering complementary products like an IaaS platform that was designed to run node.js in production[1] and via support and services[2].
The biggest issue we face with using github and npm for deploys is the intermittent service outtages.
I would expect a paid-for service to not require me to run my own proxy though.
Check Artifactory instead, they have first class support
(Disclaimer: I am with JFrog).