Why should you migrate to node.js? In this article I’ll tell you who and why he already did it!
The contents of the article
- Would I be more credible?
- They are crazy?
- A new skill: “full-stack”
- Example architecture
As a node.js enthusiast I always try to ” sponsor ” its use.
However, I am not always able to convince my interlocutors that almost all of them answer me more or less like this
“YES BUT IN THE END IT IS JAVASCRIPT”
“OK, BUT IT IS NOT COMPILED”
“COME ON, IT CANNOT BE USED FOR ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS”
“TOGETHER WITH MONGODB? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? … AND IF THERE IS A PROBLEM? “
It’s true, I am a simple ” web developer ” with only fifteen years of experience, why should they listen to me and agree with me?
So I thought …
What if I told him that a company like paypal has decided to migrate its infrastructure to node.js?
Do you think they would listen to me?
What if I told him that ebay and groupon are doing it too?
Would I be more credible?
However, on November 22, 2013 paypal announced, through its official blog, that it will migrate the software infrastructure of the web component from java to node.js , so it will switch from a compiled language to an interpreted one.
This article https://www.paypal-engineering.com/2013/11/22/node-js-at-paypal/
They are crazy?
I don’t think so, I believe instead that they are thinking about the future and the evolutions that the web is undergoing.
Evolutions that inevitably affect the skills of the engineers of the IT division of a company.
Take a look at this quote from Jeff Harrell (paypal engineer):
“HISTORICALLY, OUR ENGINEERING TEAMS HAVE BEEN SEGMENTED INTO THOSE WHO CODE FOR THE BROWSER (USING HTML, CSS AND JAVASCRIPT) AND THOSE WHO CODE FOR THE APPLICATION LAYER (USING JAVA). IMAGINE AN HTML DEVELOPER WHO HAS TO ASK A JAVA DEVELOPER TO LINK TOGETHER PAGE “A” AND “B”. THAT’S WHERE WE WERE. THIS MODEL HAS FALLEN BEHIND WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF FULL-STACK ENGINEERS, THOSE CAPABLE OF CREATING AN AWESOME USER INTERFACE AND THEN BUILDING THE APPLICATION BACKING IT. CALL THEM UNICORNS, BUT THAT’S WHAT WE WANT AND THE PRIMARY BLOCKER AT PAYPAL HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE ARTIFICIAL BOUNDARY WE ESTABLISHED BETWEEN THE BROWSER AND SERVER.
NODE.JS HELPS US SOLVE THIS BY ENABLING BOTH THE BROWSER AND SERVER APPLICATIONS TO BE WRITTEN IN JAVASCRIPT. IT UNIFIES OUR ENGINEERING SPECIALTIES INTO ONE TEAM WHICH ALLOWS US TO UNDERSTAND AND REACT TO OUR USERS’ NEEDS AT ANY LEVEL IN THE TECHNOLOGY STACK. “
In summary, it means that in the past the paypal engineering team was well distinguished between those who worked on the web part (HTML, CSS and Javascript skills) and those on the application component (Java skill).
This distinction created problems of interaction, interoperability and speed of response.
A new skill: “full-stack”
Problems solved with the birth of new “ full-stack ” professionals , that is, who have complete control of the process, from the web page to the application layer.
All this is possible only by standardizing the programming language and this can only be done with javascript .
I would like to add a further reflection to this interesting reflection by Jeff Harrell .
Javascript is the only programming language that in addition to allowing the development with the same language of the client and server components, also allows you to manage the data component always with the same language ( e.g. mongoDB )
Example architecture
Refer to the architecture I designed and used for the webapp www.darkroomlocator.com
As you can see, the entire infrastructure uses javascript as the only programming language (client + server + data) .
Not only that, a web solution with this architecture is easily portable even on mobile devices using frameworks such as apache cordova / phonegap that allow you to easily “export” a javascript webapp to a mobile app (iOS, android, win8, …)
In short, javascript is not the solution to every answer, but for some realities it comes very close, especially when it comes to web applications.
