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Isn't that the same with _any_ ecosystem?

Ruby => Rails (most of the time...) Python => Django NodeJS => ExpressJS

Ruby => RubyGems + Rake + Bundler Python => (finally something ... static) pip NodeJS => NPM Browser JS => Bower

NodeJS tries to be as simple as possible but at the end of the day, you need to use/download/learn libraries with different quality/documentation level and different API-feel/code-style.

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Java libraries tend to have "magic" that alters the language semantics. E.g. Spring's dependency injection breaks your reasoning about how an object is constructed. Hibernate breaks your reasoning about when object fields can change. Tapestry breaks your reasoning about basically everything. There's a difference between a library that follows the rules of the language and a framework that changes them.

(admittedly to a certain extent I've heard the same said of rails)

> Isn't that the same with _any_ ecosystem?

It is!

Except it isn't. Attributes of languages include their documentation syntax and extension API. Getting this right makes a remarkable difference for how easily a person can grok a new library or extension and make it useful. A good language has a common "language" overall, not just code syntax.

Which language(s) do you think do a particularly good job of documentation syntax and extension API?

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