I was a node developer back when it hadn't been packaged yet (yes, I'm a hipster). I left a few years ago for many reasons, including the fact that I think the community sucks.
I agree with everything you say, and I want to add to it. People compare node to things like Go, PHP, Python, etc, which is a mistake. As someone who had to write a fairly complex native module for node that a lot of people still use (5000 downloads this month, according to npm), nodeJS is a framework not a language.
Node is not in control of the underlying code that implements the ES spec. Node is a bunch of C/C++ middleware wrapping V8 and implementing various server and process utilities. That is all it is.
Why is this important? Because it biases the community towards piling on feature after feature and moving at an insane pace, sometimes in ways that are outside of the community's control. Node is biased against stability, because they feel the need to keep up with V8. Counter this with Go, which has been frozen as a language for 8 releases now, with each release fine tuning the stability of the compiler/language, runtime, and libs.
That native module that I mentioned earlier, I have a bunch of open requests to make it work with nodeJS 6 (no idea what this is), which is the fourth breaking V8 interface change I've had to deal with. The native module clocks in at >2000 lines of C++. I implemented the same library in Go and it clocks in at 500 lines. I've only had to modify the Go version of this library once, and it was to take advantage of a new feature (i.e. I didn't have to update it).
Node's continual quest for features is going to keep it in the niche web development space it has come to dominate. There is simply no way I would architect a system with such an unstable platform.
I agree with everything you say, and I want to add to it. People compare node to things like Go, PHP, Python, etc, which is a mistake. As someone who had to write a fairly complex native module for node that a lot of people still use (5000 downloads this month, according to npm), nodeJS is a framework not a language.
Node is not in control of the underlying code that implements the ES spec. Node is a bunch of C/C++ middleware wrapping V8 and implementing various server and process utilities. That is all it is.
Why is this important? Because it biases the community towards piling on feature after feature and moving at an insane pace, sometimes in ways that are outside of the community's control. Node is biased against stability, because they feel the need to keep up with V8. Counter this with Go, which has been frozen as a language for 8 releases now, with each release fine tuning the stability of the compiler/language, runtime, and libs.
That native module that I mentioned earlier, I have a bunch of open requests to make it work with nodeJS 6 (no idea what this is), which is the fourth breaking V8 interface change I've had to deal with. The native module clocks in at >2000 lines of C++. I implemented the same library in Go and it clocks in at 500 lines. I've only had to modify the Go version of this library once, and it was to take advantage of a new feature (i.e. I didn't have to update it).
Node's continual quest for features is going to keep it in the niche web development space it has come to dominate. There is simply no way I would architect a system with such an unstable platform.