The server-side Javascript meme

<i>"Aren’t there enough ways to write web-applications as it stands?"</i><p>...no? Choice (and the ensuing competition) is a good thing. Different frameworks and languages have different strengths and different uses, and people have different preferences. Tools that try to be everything to everyone fail.

For me, it's all about Node.js. None of the other server-side JS web stacks have excited me at all - they didn't offer anything that Python or PHP didn't already give me (I'm utterly unexcited about being able to run the same code on both the client and the server). Node complements existing technolgies really well, and has an incredibly well designed API.

I remember when the most popular use of javascript was putting scrolling text marquees in browser status bars. For years, javascript was largely dismissed as a gimmicky toy. It's kind of amazing how much further we've been able to take it.

<i>"Aren’t there enough ways to write web-applications as it stands?"</i><p>Chances are someone else made the same argument about his language du jour several years ago.