Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Rise of Node

My understanding (from someone who's looked a lot at Node, but never jumped in) is that it handles a large volume of "cheap" transactions well. I routinely see cautions against using it in computationally-intense situations. The common recommendation there is to split that code off into C and call it async.



-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Cookson [mailto:KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 12:12 PM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries) <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [WEB400] [EXTERNAL] Re: Rise of Node

On the comparison of adopting Node and Java...

My shop refused to adopt Java on the IBM i because: (1) we were already using .NET, and (2) database drivers and stored procedures were sufficient for the few times we needed to make .NET interact with DB2 and COBOL.

Node is different for our shop for a variety of reasons.

* Using Node would let our .NET developers stop using ADO.NET to interact with the IBM i. Getting rid of dependency on ADO.NET would let them move to .NET Core.

* Node uses one of the de facto standard languages of the Internet: JavaScript. People need to get over bad impressions they may have formed in olden days. JavaScript (actually ECMAScript now) has matured quite a bit as a language. And TypeScript offers enhancements if you want/need them. I am NOT saying JavaScript is the best language ever. I AM saying we already have people in our shop who have coded JavaScript for years.

* Node has proven scalability. It is used by businesses that need to handle very high volumes of concurrent requests as fast as possible while keep CPU *relatively* low. Businesses like Walmart, PayPal, eBay, LinkedIn, Netflix, Dow Jones, and others use Node because it helps them scale well. Our company has reasons for wanting the ability to scale very big, too. I am NOT saying other technologies don't scale (they do). I AM saying a lot of big businesses are choosing Node as a technology to help them scale very big-and Node has proven successful for them. We are leaning towards doing the same.
I don't know if I see Node replacing ILE languages in our shop. I tend to think of Node as a niche technology. Use it when you need to process high volumes of concurrent requests really fast while keeping CPU relatively low. I'm not under the impression that Node/JS was intended to be a general purpose programming platform like .NET or Java or CL/RPG/COBOL/C. I'm not sure why I would use Node for a batch program that runs over a large number of DB2 records to spit out a report. I'll keep an open mind. But someone would have to persuade me.

Thanks,

Kelly Cookson
IT Project Leader
Dot Foods, Inc.
217-773-4486 ext. 12676
www.dotfoods.com<http://www.dotfoods.com>