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by luke5441 236 days ago
If you use async I/O you can just use the Chrome JavaScript runtime as-is. I would claim it was the only low-effort model available to them and therefore not motivation.

The motivation for node was that users wanted to use JavaScript on the server.
1 comments
dns_snek 236 days ago
> If you use async I/O you can just use the Chrome JavaScript runtime as-is.

What do you mean? A JS runtime can't do anything useful on its own, it can't read files, it can't load dependencies because it doesn't know anything about "node_modules", it can't open sockets or talk to the world in any other way - that's what Node.js provides.

> I would claim it was the only low-effort model available to them and therefore not motivation.

It was a headline feature when it released.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100901081015/https://nodejs.or...

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luke5441 236 days ago
Obviously you can add modules calling to C/C++ functionality to a scripting language runtime easily (and the interface to do that is already available for the browser implementation).

In the above link Node could be described as a Chrome V8 distribution with modules enabling building a web server.

Adding threading to a non-threaded scripting runtime is another ball game.

The point is that Node was forced into this model by V8 limitations, then sold it as an advantage, however, it is only one way to solve the problem with its own trade-offs and you have to look at the specific use case you are looking at to see if it is really the best solution for your use case.

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dns_snek 236 days ago
> Obviously you can add modules calling to C/C++ functionality to a scripting language runtime easily

Yes, obviously, that's what NodeJS does. But you can't "just use the V8 runtime as-is if you're doing async IO", it doesn't have those facilities at all.

Async IO wasn't just "sold as an advantage", it is an advantage. Websockets were gaining popularity around that time and async IO is a natural fit for that.

You would have to change the language and boil the ocean to make the runtime support multiple threads (properly).

But why? Just to end up with the inferior thread-per-request runtime (which by the way, still needs to support async because it's part of the language), that requires developers to write JS which is incompatible with browser JS, which would've eliminated most of the synergy between the two?

I really don't understand what you're going for here. I don't see a single advantage here.

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luke5441 236 days ago
I think green threads (Java Virtual Threads, Go to an extent) are strictly superior to async/await.

If you don't have many threads, OS threads are okay as well. It is all about memory and scheduling overhead.

But that is just my opinion. You are welcome to have a different opinion.

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dns_snek 235 days ago
No I don't think your opinion is "wrong" or anything, it's just that this is a language-level limitation and not a valid criticism of NodeJS.
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