JavaScript graduates to the server

or simply Node -- is getting endorsements from established companies just as Microsoft and Yahoo, as so then as from smaller ventures. Geared to network application development, the platform is built on the Google Chrome V8 JavaScript engine and features an event-driven, nonblocking I/O model that advocates say make it ideal for data-intensive, real-time applications running across distributed devices.

Big-time support for Node.js Microsoft is backing Node.js as a development language on the company's Windows Azure cloud platform. The company offers its Windows Azure SDK for Node.js. "Over the then and there couple of weeks, you're going to see at heart us round out all of the features of Azure to have integrated Node.js libraries," says Microsoft vice president Scott Guthrie.

In November, Yahoo introduced its Cocktails innovation for Web developers, featuring Node.js, JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS. Initial deliverables include Mojito, an environment-agnostic Web application framework for the client and server, and Manhattan, a hosted platform for Mojito applications. "The way we leverage Node.js in Manhattan is by having Node.js be the execution core of Manhattan," says Renaud Waldura, a senior product manager at Yahoo. Manhattan adds several high-end services not available in Node.js itself, just as security and isolation, he says.

Node.js as well is catching on at lesser-known companies just as GroupDock, which provides a business application platform for HTML5 applications that can work on computers and mobile devices.

Node.js is no panacea Though Node.js is generating a lot of positive buzz, not everyone is sold on it. Ted Dziuba, a senior technical staff member at eBay, has posted a profanity-laced blog in which he declares, "Node.js is cancer." In the blog, he calls it a "scalability disaster waiting to happen." He as well argues a server-side framework should not be written in JavaScript and says Node.js disobeys the Unix way.

Node.js creator Dahl acknowledges Dziuba's concerns, however says they are not mainstream: "This person makes complaints about how CPU- bound tasks can block a process -- which is true. Most servers we see are I/O-bound -- not calculating numbers in a tight loop -- so they do not hit this problem. If there is a CPU-bound part of a server, we provide a number of methods for running it in parallel -- which [Dziuba] does not consider. It truly is not a scalability disaster waiting to happen." Dahl cites the smartphone application builder Voxer, which runs hundreds of Node processes to do VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), processing thousands of parallel processes.

Whereas Dahl sees Node.js as a Java replacement on servers, others disagree. "The short answer is no, we don't see Node.js displacing PHP or Java," says Solomon Hykes, CEO of DotCloud, which offers a cloud computing platform that supports Node.js. "However we're seeing two very important trends: First, the landscape of server-side languages and frameworks is increasingly fragmented -- and applications increasingly need to combine several of them to be successful. So we're going to see more of Java and Node.js, more of PHP plus Node.js, for instance, all working at the same time in the same application."

The possibility to use JavaScript beyond browsers

With developers latching onto the possibility to use JavaScript beyond browsers, Node.js's usage is destined to grow. Its acceptance by major innovation players gives it a place alongside technologies just as Java and PHP, even if it is on the whole a very young platform.

This story, "The rise of Node.js: JavaScript graduates to the server," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in application development at InfoWorld.com. For the latest developments in business research news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.