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Ask HN: Is software creation more fashion than rational?

by jmilinion on 4/15/13, 11:13 PM with 3 comments

Let's try this example.

Think about navigation websites before Google Maps. Think about it after Google Maps.

Look at Node.js. Build a time machine, go back to the past before Google Maps. Tell people about Node.JS. Now go think what their response would have been.

Javascript has pretty much existed for a while. People knew about the language. They had a chance to test it. The major specification of Javascript was there for all to see.

So why did people change their opinion on Javascript? How did people who previously hated Javascript and all it stood for all of a sudden change their minds to the language when everything about the language was there for all to see?

  • by mayank on 4/15/13, 11:40 PM

    It's quite simple: speed. Javascript engines predating V8 tended to be on the slow side, which discouraged in-browser scripts from being complex or large. As a result, nobody really cared about the JS object model or the flexibility of the language or pretty much anything other than showing popups. With a fast JS engine and node's async network stack (also fast), it suddenly became a "real" language.

  • by wmf on 4/16/13, 12:22 AM

    Yes, it's a combination of fashion, marketing, path dependence, etc. There is actually some technical merit to Node.js because it forces all code to be async, although one might ask why Erlang didn't get Node's mindshare instead.

    (BTW, server-side JS actually did exist back in the day but it was completely ignored, which proves your point exactly.)