Node.js and MongoDB Turning JavaScript Into a Full-Stack Language

Nerval's Lobster writes "For all its warts and headaches, JavaScript has emerged as the lingua franca of the modern Web, arguably second in adoption only to HTML itself, which obviously is just a markup standard rather than a full-fledged programming language. It's effectively impossible to launch a sophisticated Web project without making extensive use of JavaScript and AJAX dynamic loading. That's precisely why recent projects that move JavaScript beyond its usual boring domain of defining in-browser interactivity are so interesting — because it's already dominant, and growing even more so. Writer and software developer Vijith Assar argues that Node.js and MongoDB are turning JavaScript into a full-stack language. 'In the grand scheme, Node and Mongo are still quite new; for the most part, ace JavaScript developers who can write brilliant code on both sides of the request transaction have yet to emerge,' he suggests. 'But if and when they do, the things they build could be jaw-dropping.'"

Comments

Citation Needed

[casings]

In the grand scheme, Node and Mongo are still quite new; for the most part, ace JavaScript developers who can write brilliant code on both sides of the request transaction have yet to emerge, but if and when they do, the things they build could be jaw-dropping.

Can any real developer explain why having a javascript backend would be any different to any other backend in such a way where something jaw-dropping could only be the result of the javascript backend?

Re: Citation Needed

[Lunix Nutcase]

And that is "jaw dropping" how? You can already do that with several languages and nothing is remotely "jaw dropping" about it.

Re: Citation Needed

[LordThyGod]

But if you're going to pick a single language to be used by everyone for all purposes, then why pick something kludgy like JavaScript?

Because there isn't one? How many languages run in all web browsers, have a native database implementation that scales, and a server side language.

Re: Citation Needed

[hackula]

Totally BS. I use node.js in every production product, so do not get me wrong, I love it. However, node happening to have the same language as the front end is an outrageously bad argument for it. Also, "ace JavaScript developers who can write brilliant code on both sides of the request transaction have yet to emerge" is dead wrong. There are plenty of people using node.js as a production environment, and many of them are amazingly talented at front end development as well... just like RoR, PHP, .Net, Java, or any other server side platform. The strength of node, or any other language, is in the community that forms around it. .Net and Java would be terrible if they did not have a community of people building RAD controls, PDF manipulation libraries, and M$ integration libraries (common needs for the business community). RoR would suck if it was not for the huge community of people building start up web apps with similar infrastructure and design requirements (heroku sprang up out of this culture, I would argue). Node's community is still forming, but I would say it has a strong commitment to performance, high concurrency, and an embrace of a unix-y module system (see npm) that is clearly a reaction to giant frameworks like Rails and ASP.Net. It is not for everyone, and I recommend people all the time to check out Rails instead if it fits their needs better. For me though, node has been awesome over the past few years, and works for me and my company.

Re: Citation Needed

[kwerle]

Some higher level, less nasty thing (C, CoffeeScript, Dart, Java, Clojure, whatever) gets compiled into something (asm, javascript, bytecode) that runs on your chosen platform (x86, ARM, web browser, node, JVM).

The assembly equivalents in this case are ASM, javascript, bytecode.

Sure, javascript is a high level language. Someone once thought of assembly as high level when compared to machine code.

It's pretty easy to think of bytecode as the assembly of the JVM. Not much of a stretch to think of javascript as the assembly of the web, if you think of it as a crappy low level language that you'd rather not deal with - which I do.

Maybe that's just my tastes and vivid imagination...

Javascript is now web scale

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, it's fanboy hyperbole.

Re:It'd be neat if a JVM could run in a browser

[Anonymous Coward]

So many good JVM based languages (Scala, Closure, JRuby).

I wonder if anyone ever thought of letting a JVM run in a browser and use those for the full stack as a replacement for javascript.

(Edit: yes, I've heard of java applets before)

Oh, God no!

JavaScript has turned the web into a thick client medium.

I tried recently to use NoScript and I ended up having to turn it off for every damn website that I visit in order to just use it. I couldn't even log into my credit union or broker without it!

JavaScript has turned the web into bloatware. And all it does is make pages more cluttered, harder to use, longer to load, pages frequently lock up my browser, takes up bandwidth, etc .... JavaScript is a tool for crap. It is for advertising. It's funny, not wasn't I able to login to my credit union with NoScript, but all the ads/promotions/(shit I don't care about) didn't work.

I think I'll start a new metric or new law - the AC law:

A website's quality is inversely proportional to the amount of JavaScript.

Case in point: Google. No scripts there but immensely valuable.

Worthless Social media websites: loaded with the crap.

Re:Please top hijacking Javascript _

[spage]

No, let's keep advancing JavaScript.

Let's compare
* find web site promoting some application
* go to download link
* find it's not available for Mac/Linux/your phone/Windows XP
* or it is, but you need to download a different Qt/GTK/SDL/DotNet/JDK runtime
* but that's not available for your machine, or it's 32-bit not 64-bit
* now download, save, run installer, wait for virus checker
* now finally run the bloody thing
* (Windows-only) wonder why there's another task running, it's the %^$#! Check for updates service
* A week later. Yay, there's an update. Repeat all these steps.

vs.
* find web site promoting some application
* click link
* you're running today's build. It just works.

You have to be a clueless, blind, future-fearing Luddite, yet simultaneously have the skills to master the download-find-install-run-maintain loop to find the former preferable. The 0.1% of the world population who fit that niche all hang out on Slashdot and vote up "bloated browser" comments.