[niggler]

Node.js may be young but 98% of the code can be reused (and if you are careful, you probably wrote the fallbacks already). V8 can be built separately.

When you understand the zen of javascript and try to write in a consistent manner, JS is more readable than C. I equate these concerns with arguments about how lisp or scheme is unreadable.

The ecosystem for tooling is expanding, albeit slowly.

However, most of your code probably could be implemented in a way that can be run in browser (e.g. XLS parser: http://niggler.github.com/js-xls/) which is where I see the real value in node. Aligning the languages means fewer moving parts and potential points of failure (as opposed to having to worry about quirks in implementations of many languages and worrying about features supported in one context but not the other)