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Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

node.js was built from scratch, in C, to resemble javascript syntax intentionally.

What? The engine is written in C, but all JavaScript engines are written in another language (C being the most popular) because it is an interpreted language. The engine isn't written from scratch because it is the V8 engine from Google. Of course the system binding and package system is written specifically for Node.

C++, actually.

node.js doesn't just resemble JavaScript, it is JavaScript. Like ES5 standard JavaScript, and (very soon) ES6 standard JS as well. It uses the V8 JS engine.

The only non-standard features of Node.js has been the module system (CommonJS), but even that will be ECMA standard as of next version.

(also, Node.js was built in C++ and JS)

The module standard that is present in ES6 is a very different beast than CommonJS

Agreed. I use ES6 modules regularly (via Babel compiled to CommonJS, and also Rollup). Unlike CommonJS, ES6 modules have the advantage (and disadvantage) of being statically resolved, which permits tree-shaking (but denies dynamic resolution of imports like CommonJS).

The "that" in my sentence refers to "module system", not "CommonJS", but I agree my sentence was unclear.

More specifically: in the next major Node.js release (v7.0.0), ES6 modules will be implemented. That's what I was trying to say.

No, it was not. It uses Chrome's JavaScript Engine, V8.

From nodejs.org:

> Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.

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