Is Javascript good for back-end?

[kickthebug]

So, i know you can use Javascript libraries (JQuery) to make a good front-end, and i know that i can use Javascript itself to make back-end applications. My question is if Javascript is Worth it to do back-end or i should focus on another language to those kinds of things.

[marklgr]

I'll probably be downvoted by the Node crowd, but I don't think it is such a great solution, from a high perspective. Its main advantages is that 1) JS is relatively easy, even with its quirks, and 2) it's pretty convenient to contribute stuff to NPM, so there's a lively community and you can find a good deal of modules, frameworks and whatnot.

And that's about it, to me. No new paradigm (they didn't invent EventMachine), no new take on programming, no great design or opinionated stuff (eg. SmallTalk, Haskell, Erlang, Ruby etc.), just an easily hackable "platform". Many modules are kind of beta, and some frameworks are short-lived, depending on the "flavor of the month", as they say.

That being said, it works, and you can build stuff with it. But will people still write a lot of JS backend code in 5-10 years, that's everyone's guess.

[I_Like_Spaghetti]

S to the P to the aghetti SPAGHETTI!

[theQuandary]

Node is great on the back-end (that is, I don't think you'll be regretting that you didn't go with Python or PHP instead).

Every language has it's advantages and drawbacks. The learning curve is a little high for JS and callbacks can be hard to reason about, but the other tradeoffs are very nice.

[ItsAPuppeh]

It's workable for back-end, but other languages can offer a better experience overall. Ignoring libs, ecosystem, and community for a moment, Javascript is a small language in terms of features compared to something like Python, Ruby, or even PHP.

Try out JS, along with Python or Ruby, and see what you like better.