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I've been getting great results with Node.js since a year+. Everything is perfect and I couldn't be happier. Yet I have a feeling that this model won't last long and will be forgotten as soon as something replaces JavaScript on the browser, so I'm considering migrating to Haskell or similar as soon as I can.

Is Node.js a future-safe technology, or is it a middle-term solution?

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How is this question definitely answerable? – World Engineer♦ Jun 22 at 0:46
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@WorldEngineer We can come back to the question in 3-5 years and provide a pretty accurate answer. – Mark Rushakoff Jun 22 at 0:54
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Won't be sorry going to Haskell, but I don't see Node.JS dropping off the face. JavaScript is not going anywhere on the browser, it's one of (if not the) most known languages out there, so there's more than enough developers who will continue it. Also Node.JS is a decent technology in a market living off terrible ones (php, rails, et al). Can't think of why it would disappear anytime soon. Everything will however disappear, eventually. – Jimmy Hoffa Jun 22 at 1:20
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@JimmyHoffa talking about how everything eventually disappears... beautiful. – Lego Stormtroopr Jun 22 at 1:53
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@JimmyHoffa Eventually takes longer than most expect. Even today a ridiculous fraction of all financial requests go through COBOL code, much of which is a similar age to me, and I do not expect to live long enough to see that fact change. To the best of my knowledge, every company that I have worked at in the last 15 years still has code that I wrote running in production using the technologies that originally used. The question isn't whether Node.js will survive - it is whether new stuff will continue to be written in it. – btilly Jun 22 at 1:55

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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

  • It's popular and growing.

  • If it failed, it's not like you wouldn't be able to re-use a bunch of your code elsewhere. It's not hard to port core node libraries to the client-side and other JS libraries. It took me about 10 minutes to rewrite their event system for use in browsers without losing any of the interface.

  • If Node or JS declined in popularity, it's not like the Node utility company pulls a plug and you have to stop using it.

  • It's really just a not-very extravagant library sitting on top of V8 which definitely ain't going anywhere any time soon. Folks may eventually start talking more about the big frameworks that wrap around Node but it's too simple, robust, and good at what it does (which is KISS with good performance) to not stick around.

  • In my experience, the types of people who want JavaScript replaced on the browser suck not just at JavaScript but at all other client-side technologies and UI in general. It's Java devs that cry the most and I still see those guys writing HTML without doctypes so I'm not anticipating an insta-replacement solution any time soon from that front. They're not detail-oriented enough on the sorts of stuff UI devs focus on to even understand what's needed on the web's client-side. JS is a very good fit.

  • JS is not new. It's been around since the mid-'90s and won the client-side argument against VB, Flash, Java applets, and apparently all kinds of crap in the '90s that I was never exposed to. So it holds up well.

  • About half of Google really seems to want to come up with a replacement for JavaScript. They haven't come up with a compelling argument yet. So it has real traction with its user-base no matter what Crockford says about us being "stuck" with it.

IMO, Node will be big for years to come. JavaScript will die at about the same time C dies since the two complement each other so well in V8. So not for a good long time and it's more likely both will simply evolve for decades.

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In addition to Erik's very solid points, node is under the very liberal Apache 2 license and V8 is under a rather liberal license itself so you will always be able to maintain the code yourself if need be. I think it is a pretty safe bet.

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