[deno]

1. For an async-first environment, which node mostly is, lack of threading is hardly an issue. Only threading node should ever have is the web worker w/ shared memory & atomic ops that’s already going into the Web Platform[1]. I say this is an advantage.

2. Typescript is great, it even has strict null checking via union types. Way better than the half-hearted attempt at optional typing you’ll find in Python 3. So if you think Python is a good ecosystem, then node is miles better. Sure, it’s not Scala, but on the other hand interop w/ Javascript and Web Platform is seamless. It’s a trade-off, but one that I think is very much worth taking. Also it compiles in seconds, not hours.

3. You can share code w/ client which is actually useful considering web app logic is moving client-side. See: React.

4. WebAssembly is nowhere ready. No idea if using it/tooling/debugging will be any good for anything other than what emscripten enables right now. It’s a very risky investment to be considering that early.

Even if you think WebAssembly will pan out, the languages that will target it already target Javascript. It’s just alternative bytecode, really.

[1] http://tc39.github.io/ecmascript_sharedmem/shmem.html#Struct...