A comparison between Apache and node.js is entirely fair. Apache is a server that you configure, node.js is a platform to write a server (like apache) in.
An infinite loop, or any processing heavy task for that matter, will block up Apache or node.js but in node.js it's your problem and not a developer who works on Apache httpd who you've never met. This whole "node doesn't work for processing heavy applications" meme is a little trite. *Any* application that is processing heavy needs to scale to multiple servers eventually (map reduce anyone?) the fact that node is one process per core is irrelevant because even threads will only take you across the cores on a single machine, not across machines, which you'll have to deal with at scale. In fact, you could argue that node.js (by virtue of v8) is better at many processing heavy tasks since the vm is so damn performant. The only thing that comes to mind that might be a little better is erlang since it has really great builtin binary term serialization that helps breakup computational tasks across machines/cores. There is also something to be said for the fact that other platforms might have more *experience* writing processing heavy application as most of node.js' biggest use cases this far have been more IO heavy than processing heavy (with the exception of Mozilla's BrowserID). To answer the original question: - You need to trust yourself. You're writing the server, most bugs will cause critical failures. If you don't feel comfortable writing a server, don't write node. - node is still very young. even people who have been using it the longest are working out best practices so if you're the kind of person that needs a lot of guidance you'll be disappointed. - many problems are not solved. for example: this week i had a write a new deployment system for our product which is made primarily of components me and substack wrote in the last week. Honestly, the best guidance I can give is that node is the *future* even when it's not the best fit in the present. It might be scary now but it's something you invest your future in it. Things will only get faster and more mature from here on out. While Python and Ruby are releasing new versions that are actually slower than previous ones node is shaving off system calls and beating benchmarks. If you need things to be fast, and you're comfortable getting your hands dirty, use node. -Mikeal On Mar 5, 2012, at March 5, 20124:34 PM, Dick Hardt wrote: > > On Mar 5, 2012, at 4:24 PM, Mark Hahn wrote: > >> "Un-handled" exceptions are easy to handle. I have a try-catch on the call >> for each page. So individual pages are clobbered as on any other platform. > > That works if all the work is synchronous. Node really shines for async > operations, which the try-catch loop on the page does not catch. > >> >> How does apache handle an infinite loop? Won't it kill performance? A >> server with an infinite loop is screwed on any platform. In any case, I >> tend to avoid coding such loops. > > Comparing Apache to Node.js is not the question. > > Node has a different architecture than the other popular dynamic languages > runtimes, which is why it has generated so much usage. > > Personally, I'm not finding your responses to a self proclaimed nwebie useful > to them understanding the differences and the potential pitfalls of Node and > other platforms. > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to nodejs@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > nodejs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To post to this group, send email to nodejs@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nodejs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en
