Node.js Interview: 4 Questions with Creator Ryan Dahl

http://bostinnovation.com/2011/01/31/node-js-interview-4-questions-with-creator-ryan-dahl/

by kmccarth • 15 years ago

53 13 15 years ago

mjs2• 15 years ago

The two most interesting points for me:

* JavaScript wasn't the original language choice: he originally tried C, Lua and Haskell. He especially liked Lua but "it already had a lot of libraries written with blocking code."

* He regrets using the CommonJS module system. ("Far too complex and wildly different from how the browser works.")

gmac• 15 years ago

Yes, especially on the first: he picked JavaScript specifically because it had so few libraries (implicitly: for a well-known and likeable enough language). Conversely, had he picked a language with lots of existing (blocking) libraries, node might well have been dismissed as broken or half-assed.

requinot592• 15 years ago

> He especially liked Lua

Well, not as much as Haskell : "Haskell is pretty ideal but I’m not smart enough to hack the GHC. Lua is less ideal but a lovely language [...]" (at the beginning of the 2nd answer.)

> He regrets using the CommonJS module system

Yes, and this is pretty interesting. Also, he regrets using WAF as the build system ("it introduces more WTFs than necessary".)

I have a great respect for Ryan Dahl. He is not orthodox. He is not a blind parrot.

mjs2• 15 years ago

Heh, I got the impression that he tried harder to get Lua working, partly because he felt is was a more pragmatic choice, but I take your point.

jimmyjazz14• 15 years ago

The good news is someone else did 'hack' GHC and gave it a nice new IO back-end. http://johantibell.com/files/hask17ape-sullivan.pdf

jerf3• 15 years ago

Given that list of languages, one wonders why he didn't try Erlang, except inasmuch as it already has pretty much everything Node.js has now and more....

silentbicycle4• 15 years ago

I heard it's bad at strings or something.

silentbicycle4• 15 years ago

My first question is "why not coroutines?!"

I love Lua (IMHO, Lua is Javascript, if JS hadn't spent its formative years huffing glue). I get where he's coming from with the "most libraries are blocking" bit, because hey, most libraries ARE blocking -- making a fully event-loop-centric system really is a niche case. If you want to focus on that 100%, cool, use Erlang, damn it. They did it right! Failing that, make a clear point of running "non-async" code externally and message-passing.

But I really don't see the point of deluding JS programmers into writing hand-written-CPS "to be asynchronous". I wish they knew better. See e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2150800

Node.js Interview: 4 Questions with Creator Ryan Dahl

Related Stories