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by anon6_ 3859 days ago
In my opinion using a language that doesn't compile into a binary with native type safety is a step backwards if it's integrated with any mission-critical system.

Love node.js and happy to see it succeed. I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of seeing it used in places where it's not, because it gives the wrong impression.

I wouldn't use node.js everywhere. I'd say python can wear more hats, but if it came down to something you can't update regularly and would cause big ramification if it'd fail. You're just making a gamble.

If you have a JS bug which wasn't caught, which could have been caught via static analysis, you're going to either go into flight with broken entertainment or wait for a mechanic to update the system.

So to reiterate. Happy for node.js, I don't think I agree with where you applied it. I hope that customers, the airline companies and node.js doesn't suffer unduly because the wrong tool was picked for the job.

1 comments

typescript?
TypeScript's safety is limited: its type annotations do not exist at runtime, so if it interacts with dynamic code, its type safety is violated.
Scalajs looks so much better.
good call on typescript. I highly recommend it.

for those who don't know, typescript gives you static typechecking and builds to JS. http://www.typescriptlang.org/

That said, node.js can be embraced by being used in places where it's strongest, like packaging web assets, front end builds, package managing js libraries, websocket stuff.

While the company selling the stuff doesn't go into much detail on how node.js is used - when bugs happen - and they will, node enthusiasts are going to get a bad rep for thinking they can use JS everywhere. Not a good idea