[uptownJimmy]

Node isn't "killing it" anywhere, as far as I can see. It's a special-case technology being touted as competition for proper server-side languages, but in reality it is poorly-suited for the job.

There's no valid reason why most people should choose JS on the server instead of Ruby, Python, PHP, C# or Java, except that so many people know JS and so many people love shiny "cool" stuff. Node is a deeply flawed and very messy ecosystem.

Verdict: no, but thanks.

[abritinthebay]

> There's no valid reason why most people should choose JS on the server instead of Ruby, Python, PHP, C# or Java

It's faster than the first 3 of those and easier to write than the last 2. It handles concurrency better than the first 3 as well.

I'll be sure to let Ebay, Paypal, Yahoo, Walmart, AirBnB, Netflix, Uber.. etc that they are clearly wrong: because you said so.

[uptownJimmy]

I listed some reasonable questions just above this post, and I still don't have a good answer from anyone: what's the current list of apps these companies are running on Node, how special-case are they, how happy are these companies with their Node apps, how big a portion of their code bases are Node, etc?

I've seen some links to a few articles that date back 3-5 years, but nothing more current, and nothing very detailed at all. That list of companies you typed out is the same list of companies everybody always types out. I'm wondering about some actual details. I don't think that's unfair.

[abritinthebay]

I'm not an employee of any of those companies (though the one I DO work for is moving to Elixir and Node away from Ruby) so I don't feel I should comment on that.

However they all are very active in the conference circuit (and on their engineering blogs) talking about their current work in Node.

Its not unfair to ask but not everyone can give you the kind of information you seek.

[uptownJimmy]

My point is this: I am willing to bet that none of those companies are using Node throughout the larger portions of their code bases. Perhaps in parts of their code bases, where they can afford to try new things, sure, but not in the larger, more mission-critical parts: in those parts you will more likely find a lot of Java and PHP.

PayPal is frequently cited as one of the companies "using Node", for instance. But PayPal's Web site is running on Apache. Where's all that Node? Is it being used internally, for micro-services or something? For a mobile app? I can't find PayPal's Big Bundle o'Node.

The author's gist is that there IS NO HUGE WAVE of companies re-architecting their code bases in Node, and that, furthermore, the rampant proliferation of JS front-end frameworks looks crazy and frothy and misguided. And nobody ever produces any real, hard data to counter that general set of points. It's always the same stuff: "here's a list of companies that use Node", and "Node is the future and you're just old", "all the cool kids are using React even though it is wildly over-engineered for most use cases", etc. It's mind-numbing and repetitive and weird.