I think the answer is a break in backwards compatibility on a major version release.
People in JS/frontend world are willing to drop the world for the latest new thing, I see this as less jarring than, say, Python 2 -> Python 3.
People in JS/frontend world are willing to drop the world for the latest new thing, I see this as less jarring than, say, Python 2 -> Python 3.
Compare that with javascript which has never had a breaking change. On top of that Typescript is a backwards compatible superset of javascript.
More to the point, Ryan has a humble explanation of what regrets he has about Node.js[1], why they exist and in some cases why there isn't an easy fix.
The point that I assume you're making, that sometimes it is better to spend significant energy to fix something, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, is a good one. However I'd suggest this is not one of those cases.
Why is that amusing? I specifically chose that example for that exact reason. I was highlighting the difference in the audience and use case.
> However I'd suggest this is not one of those cases.
I don't see the argument that supports that, either in the post or your reply.
The thing is, I can see Beepboo 1.0 being announced in 2025 to address the things that went wrong with deno. Because there will be design mistakes. And at what point do you say 'oh too many people rely on this software to fix this, I have to start over'?
Couple this with a very real trend-chasing and resume pushing in frontend dev and I'm starting to understand why people are so cynical about this stuff.
Typescript is something more palatable to me because it wasn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
My apologies I misread.
> ... there's a tendency to start over when the development gets hard to maintain or support instead of just fixing the mistakes.
The thought that Node.js should have been 'fixed' instead of creating Deno is where I disagree. At a glance I can see a few reasons:
- Node.js maintainers + community may not even think there is something to be fixed (see various discussions in this thread about module resolutions)
- Politics, death by committee, inertia
- Effectively a dependency with npm registry (although not technically)
- Lack of backwards compatibility with changes (e.g. module resolution)
> The thing is, I can see Beepboo 1.0 being announced in 2025
Node.js was initially released in 2009 so it's probably fairer to suggest Beepboo 1.0 will be released in 2030. And yes, if it improved on Deno and solved inherent problems that couldn't be solved internally, I would wholeheartedly cheer it along.
I think it's also worth mentioning that Node.js is at a level of stability and maturity that people who plan to and have already built on it, aren't left abandoned.
Except there aren't any breaking changes in JavaScript, are there? Even in Node if anything is deprecated that is done over time in many years.