I don't hate node However, the tools around using Node and JS are inferior to other languages (C/C++, Java, C#, even PHP and Python). Further, the language doesn't have the cleanest history in terms of design, so in a project with multiple people on it, you are leveraging coding guidelines, linters, and the like to have any real consistency.

A colleague raised an interesting question which I will paraphrase -- given the desire to build a project that exposes webservices from the ground up, what language would you choose?

My first response was, it depends on the platform. If you are using Azure, for instance, C# is the first class candidate, Node and other languages are tier 2/3. EC2, sky is the limit. Heroku, probably start with Ruby. If all things were equal, I would personally choose Python over Javascript.

Python and Twisted give a lot of the same benefits as Node in terms of async development. Python is more consistent and has a more mature (and featureful) standard library. Node and modules are plentiful, but a lot (even socket.io) still show some signs of being young.

For me, the choice is - right tool for the platform, group, and project you are working on. Personally, I will err towards the more mature when you are talking about scripting languages. (PHP doesn't count, it's super easy and I've used it a lot, but I always feel dirty afterward :) )

Because javascript has a number of serious flaws.

And because when you bolt everything back on to node to get a decent webdev environment it's really not that fast.

And because callbacks are a really shitty way to write async code.

Like most things node is a tool with a very specific use case, as is typical with anything that is particularly fast at one task people assume that it's fast at all tasks. (C anyone?)

And also because unless you are running a free service your code really has to be absymally slow to not make money. Therefore you should program in the environment that is most pleasurable rather than the environment that is 'fastest', whatever that means.

But mostly because most of the people who talk about how great node is really don't have a clue what it actually excels at. Basically, for all the same reasons people hate PHP.

Node as a technology is misunderstood. Most people from other languages hear that it is javascript and scoff without digging into the source or into libuv. As a platform it made a certain set of trade offs which make it ideal for certain use cases, but some zealots see it as a panacea and suggest using node for everything under the sun. (Not to mention the general arrogance of some vocal proponents -- the core people are relatively humbled but there are a lot of pseudo rock star developers who think its cool to write JS instead of using the best tools for the job)

The traditional complaints of javascript were summarized well by Crockford http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html Most of the people writing in JavaScript are not programmers. They lack the training and discipline to write good programs. JavaScript has so much expressive power that they are able to do useful things in it, anyway. This has given JavaScript a reputation of being strictly for the amateurs, that it is not suitable for professional programming. This is simply not the case. reply

I don't hate it I just won't use it because I don't like its characteristics at the moment:

* Javascript : don't like it. This "[3,1,10,2,].sort()= [ 1, 10, 2, 3 ]" is broken. Don't care about the historical explanations or philosophical arguments about strong or weak typing. It's broken and that's that.

* Nested callbacks. I don't like that. I like green threads and/or processes for handling concurrency. I'll take Go, Scala, Rust, or Erlang's (processes|channels|actors) instead, if not I'll take any green threads.

* Single threaded : server sits there with 16 cores, it's nicer to use something that can automatically scale across them. This also means if any deeply nested callback functions ends up blocking the whole node process stops.

Not trying to upset anyone at Joyent or others who put effort into, just my personal preferences. It is not that Node is bad, it's pretty good, it is just that I don't see a reason to use when they are much better tools out there.

I'll take a guess- A lot of people I know think Javascript is a horrible language- you can read blogs and blogs about arguments for why this is true and not true.

But I think it comes down to people who hate JS lamenting it escaping from client side into the server side.

no matter what people say , async programming is hard. + Async + closures makes things even harder , you need to watch for context mutation etc ... + in my opinion nodeJS is a great idea , the problem is javascript doesnt help developers do async programming the right way. Async programming should feel as natural as writing sync programs, the language should do the heavy lifting.