[acbabis]

> The truth is, most Fortune 500 shops aren’t basing their businesses on JavaScript and never will

I'm not sure what the author means by "basing their businesses on JavaScript" but lots of Fortune 500 companies are using the SPA frameworks he decried. Facebook (Fortune 500) - not only uses - but invented React, Google invented Angular, and the Fortune 500 company I work for has Angular applications in production.

Maybe the author meant "No Fortune 500 company is putting all their eggs in one basket," but that's just tech in general.

[horrido]

Many enterprises are, indeed, using SPA and Node...for the client-facing, non-mission-critical web UI software. These applications tend not to be very large, and on this scale, these tools are usable. But once you get to the really heavy stuff that enterprises rest their critical core business on, they'll stick with real languages like Java, C#, Python, C++ and Scala...things that they trust without question.

[uptownJimmy]

No big corporations are building their apps on Node, I think was his point. And he's right.

[thinkdevcode]

Walmart must be considered a small corporation then. Good to know.

[uptownJimmy]

Help us out, those of us who remain unenlightened:

1.which app(s) did Walmart build with nothing but Node on the back end?

2.How has it worked out? Are they happy with that software?

3. Any internal plans to rebuild with something else, or are they going to use Node in even more places in the near future?

Honest questions.

[thinkdevcode]

A good place to start is this quora link[1] that has many further links to read.

[1]https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-biggest-websites-built-wi...

[uptownJimmy]

That Quora post perfectly illustrates my confusion with all the claims about Node: every example of Node usage there is 3 to 5 years old, as far as I can tell.

I'm really interested in what large-scale production apps, commercial or in-house enterprise, are currently using Node on the server? For sure, not just misinterpretation and wishful thinking?

[acbabis]

A while back, the frontpage of the Node website had a list of all the companies using Node. Microsoft was one of them

[uptownJimmy]

Good point, and I've seen this stuff referenced before, so perhaps my comment above is a little over-stated.

But my confusion remains: how big are all these Node apps, what are they being used for, how robust have they proven to be, how happy are these companies with their Node server side code, how far will these Node apps be extended, how much more Node will these companies be implementing, etc.

My skepticism is fueled, in part, by numerous incidents like the one recently on the Atlanta JavaScript Slack channel, where a Node Evangelist was telling everyone how WordPress had rebuilt their infrastructure in Node. Problem is, WordPress has done nothing of the sort. They actually built a small downloadable app for WordPress admins to use in managing their WordPress sites, as far as I could figure out. Which is precisely what Node MIGHT be considered good for, no doubt about it.

But that's not what our Node Evangelist friend was preaching. And I just get the feeling that a lot of people who are spreading the Node Word are misunderstanding some of the facts on the ground. There might be some wishful thinking in Node Land. Because I wouldn't choose Node over any of 6 other server side languages right now, and I sure wouldn't attempt to build robust apps for our clients on such a fragmented and messy ecosystem of modules and shiny fads.

On that note,, where's the Django or Rails or .NET or Spring of Node Land? I can't seem to find it, and without it, Node is a non-starter for so many professionals. Just seems obvious, but maybe I'm wrong.

[acbabis]

> Good point, and I've seen this stuff referenced before, so perhaps my comment above is a little over-stated.

No worries. My main criticism is that the author's position (that big companies aren't relying on JS) was over-stated (or vacuously true, if we're being charitable).

> And I just get the feeling that a lot of people who are spreading the Node Word are misunderstanding some of the facts on the ground.

That wouldn't surprise me

> On that note,, where's the Django or Rails or .NET or Spring of Node Land?

I don't know much about ReactJS, but it's my understanding that you can switch between client-side and server-side templating in a way that's transparent to the developer. That's probably the closest thing you'll find to Spring.

There's also Jade (http://jade-lang.com/), but that's not a framework.