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Next Chapter

blog.nodejs.org

71 pointsTimWolla28 comments

Comes off as pretty childish not to address the io.elephant in the room. EDIT: I think that it's safe to say 90+% of people who clicked on "Node.js: Next Chapter" did so because they wanted to see something about io.js & how Joyent is planning to move forward.

Felt like a goodbye letter more than anything else but it does read odd because of that. Not sure I would necessarily call it childish though.

I mean in the "lalalalala I can't heeaaarrr yoooouuu" sense. Pretending that there is no rift or that the author isn't aware of it, or that there isn't (for lack of a better term) a "competing" fork of node or that the timing of this change is in no way related to that fact... it strains credulity past the breaking point. Someone being in denial of/refusing to speak to salient facts that are obvious to everyone present-- that's what made me think "childish." Like a kid who tries to pretend she didn't eat the chocolate when its all over her face :p Perhaps "denial" is a less loaded term, but it doesn't communicate my reaction as well. :)

It's entirely likely Joyent wouldn't allow him to say anything about it. Their stance has been to ignore the project entirely.

He mentioned the Node.js Foundation several times.

What would he really need say about io.js at this point? Him stepping down means he's no longer involved in the decision. And any comment from him might color the debate, and/or limit the next lead's ability to bring their own opinion.

I haven't heard about the io.js elephant; can someone give a quick synopsis?

> io.js[0] is a fork of Node.js, started in December 2014 by a contributor to the Node.js project.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js#io.js

More and more people are using io.js now, and they have more releases, using a stable engine, already reached v2, I'm sure others will add more to this list.

Some important people from Node forked it into io.js. They want to release quicker and stay on the cutting edge. IO.js is managed by consensus, whereas Node is governed by Joyent. Some were upset at the slow pace of node's progress, accusing Joyent of holding it back for "compatibility" reasons.

He did kind of address it. I got the feeling that they were more focused on the business side of things, rather than the flashy tech stuff. Stabilizing, localizing, figuring out how it's being used, etc.

As a company who uses Node in production, those things are important to us, more so than the extras the io.js team wanted to add.

It is interesting through that entire letter there were no mentions about io.js and its effect on the node community. Was hoping to see something about the "Next Chapter" related to working with io.js.

I find this pretty troubling, it really does seem the denial is still active. I have no insight into the talks between io.js and node.js, but I think the official communication should be a lot more positive regarding io.js. We'll see how everything will turn out.

AFAIK joyent have never once mentioned io.js in their communications, apart from to say "ha ha, what's that?"

They're working together as far as I know. Check or example [1]. The website itself doesn't mention anything though.

[1] https://github.com/jasnell/node.js-convergence

That's the bits about the Foundation.

Here's a bit less spending-time-with-my-family article about TJ Fontaine leaving Joyent: http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/08/node-lead-tj-fontaine-is-s...

For perspective, here is what Isaac Schlueter said when TJ took over.

http://blog.nodejs.org/2014/01/15/the-next-phase-of-node-js/

* Open page

* Search for "io.js" and "iojs"

* No results

* Not worth reading

Unless you are talking about merging with iojs then I don't give a shit. If they don't get merged within a month (or officially started) I will be taking all our code over to iojs...

What would merging with io.js mean?

Is there any reason to use node over io.js for a new project? Are the reasons not to switch to io.js for an old project the same reasons that node will not merge io.js?

Right now my company is using node but I don't want to switch them all over to iojs (On dev machines, QA, Staging, Prod, etc) only to switch back to node if they merge. That is what is holding me back.

If you are authoring packages you have to support Node because it's like 99% of the userbase. So there's a reason.

I'm sure this is related to the healing of the fork with io.js via forming a new foundation. After the merge, there won't be any desire for a single person who is "the node.js maintainer" anymore (because the new governance model shares responsibility), so it makes sense that the current one will step down.

It's funny / sad (pick one) how he manages to avoid mentioning io.js at all.

Node.js certainly seems to have a high turnover rate for project leadership. I wonder what role Joyent is playing in that. I don't think Ryan Dahl stepped down on good terms. Isaac Schluter might be a different story.

I wish I could shake people like this - their very legitimacy is at stake.

Sometimes I think people would be better off rescinding mistakes, instead of evading or falling deeper into denial.

I think demonstrating self-awareness can never be underestimated. Temporary vulnerability is worth long term trust.

The hard truth: corporate-sponsored languages are expected to be neutral. They tried to impose attitudes on their project they were probably better off kept on Twitter or Tumblr.

For that matter, I never understood how feminism could be hijacked to do with programming. What is the matter with you, Joyent.

> For that matter, I never understood how feminism could be hijacked to do with programming. What is the matter with you, Joyent.

Feminism is, loosely, a set of values about how to see the world around us and what to prioritize in interpersonal interactions and what should be respected and what shouldn't. It's not about programming itself (the very act of writing code) the way that, say, OOP is, but it's definitely about social structures, including the social structures behind the act of writing code.

When we talk about programming projects or communities that are a "democracy" or a "benevolent dictatorship" or a "meritocracy" or a "do-ocracy" or a "holacracy" or run by "consensus", we're also talking about a set of values that drive the inter-human interactions behind programming. (Some of these overlap, some of these are incompatible, and some of these -- including, for instance, "consensus" -- have multiple meanings in practice.)

Whether one believes feminism is a good set of values for these interactions is certainly something people can disagree on, just as much as people disagree on whether a meritocracy or a consensus-based approach or a dictatorship is a good set of values. But I think it's pretty clear how all of these can be applied to programming projects.

We're adults building a software tool to help people.

Without any proof of wrongdoing - even anecdotal - anyone can barge in under the guise of X and tell us to refactor our apps because someone foams at the mouth when they hear "Him?"

Who? When? How?

Then they can go right back to Twitter or Tumblr, or TV, or real life, with the first amendment, an environment vastly more polarizing.

A lot of the (very few) programmers pushing this rhetoric tend to be on the puppet strings of a cynical mob of people who don't learn coding, but instead wait in the wings to harass actual engineers.

You look them up - these feminists seem to be able to laugh at dark humor. Then I remember the guys who were fired and had their life ruined.

Am I the only one seeing this? What can we do?

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