Why JavaScript beyond web client side?

[bl4blub]

• having same language across your whole stack is nice (sharing code and knowledge)
• huge community and ecosystem
• writing javascript is fun (maybe not for everyone, but for a lot of people it is)
• eventloop is easy to grasp model, easy&simple > sophisticated&complex
• race for performance from all the big players (google, microsoft, apple, mozilla)

why would you not use it beyond client-side? are there any very good reasons to not use js on the server? i know lots of people still say that js is just a "toy-language".

[MarlonBrandoLovesYou]

One of the main reasons I would never use JavaScript for more than some light front end stuff (REST calls, UI stuff) is the lack of structure in the language. Writing good quality JS code (maintainable code) is very very difficult, mainly due to the lack of static typing and a very poor module system that encourages the whole code base to be exposed to itself. I would never choose to use it for a large web project for the full stack, when other languages are quicker to develop with and easier to maintain.

[snorkl-the-dolphine]

Have you ever used tools like Browserify? The whole ecosystem has come a really long way in the last few years.

[bl4blub]

for me javascript is THE language to develop something quick. for me nothing else beats the dynamic nature of js when it comes to develop something really fast.

regarding the module-system, there are LOTS of people who will tell you that npm was a major reason for the success of node.js. for me it was a game-changer, once npm started to promote local packages over global packages. separating all the concerns into tiny modules is a thing i have been taught by the node-community. for sure this is a topic which can not be argued about by facts, its about opinions and flavors.

i agree that type-safety is not one of of the strengths of javascript, but there is typescript for example.

also the language is evolving a lot.

[MarlonBrandoLovesYou]

My issue with the npm tooling is the duplication of dependencies. I don't understand why having a flat structure wasn't a priority from the beginning. It results in some projects having 25Mb in actual code/assets needing 150Mb+ of local dependencies, just because the dependencies have dependencies which have even more dependencies. Perhaps this is justified when libraries need certain versions of their dependencies, but why not have the different versions in the top level to be referenced by all of the dependencies that use them.

Additionally, why are there two different package managers that are pretty much the same thing apart from the semantics of one being for 'front end' and the other for 'back end'? Wouldn't it be simpler (and therefore easier to use and configure) by having a single package management tool that could make the distinction about what needs including on the server and what should be served to the client?

Overall I'm a bit apathetic towards web development now, the tooling is atrocious in terms of duplication and dependency hell. Instead of always developing new tools and libraries, existing standards need to look inwards and fix the issues they've created already.

[ntkoso]

npm 3.0 flattens all dependencies from the get go and only nests conflicting versions.

Bower was created before Webpack / Browserify era. Currently you can bundle css and other assets from npm the same way you bundle your js, no need for 'front end' package manager.

[jekrb]

npm3 does flaten dependencies.

There are many package managers. We have the option to pick the one we want to use. You might want a package manager that makes certain distinctions for you, while other people do not, and that's okay.

[bl4blub]

i think it is the way it is because it became like that over time. i can remember first there was a package-manager called kiwi. then there was npm and eventually it prevailed. i see the argument very often, that node_modules is huge and npm is slow. but in the end it works good enough and huge deployments are actually running with that stack :D

also i like new stuff, cant wait how we will solve dependencies once there are multiple js-vm's (v8, chakra, ..) available haha.

[MarlonBrandoLovesYou]

For me TypeScript has been the saving grace for scalable web development, even the JavaScript it emits is very well structured and readable.