<story><title>Popular JavaScript Package Manager Npm Raises $8M, Launches Private Modules</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/14/popular-javascript-package-manager-npm-raises-8m-launches-private-modules</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattmanser</author><text>Do I just not get the scale? For this investment to make sense, they would have to get to $100s of million dollars, but by charging a few thousand companies $7?&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;d say there&amp;#x27;s a 50&amp;#x2F;50 chance node will completely collapse within 10 years or so. And that&amp;#x27;s being generous, javascript is a controversial language and the standards committee moves very slowly. I honestly can&amp;#x27;t see it staying king once browsers can support other languages. You only have to see how fast Ruby was a darling and even now might be regarded on its swan song, less than 10 years later. Tech changes, the next big language will hit soon.&lt;p&gt;Congratulations to them and all that, and great product, I&amp;#x27;m just wondering if someone can explain the sense in investing so much money into something like this? As this seems an incredibly risky venture?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>moe</author><text>&lt;i&gt;You only have to see how fast Ruby was a darling and even now might be regarded on its swan song&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;By what metric, your personal preference?&lt;p&gt;Because the common statistics[1][2][3] don&amp;#x27;t quite support your remark.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;And I&amp;#x27;d say there&amp;#x27;s a 50&amp;#x2F;50 chance node will completely collapse within 10 years or so.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Again, just making random stuff up?&lt;p&gt;As much as I&amp;#x27;d love for javascript to disappear, the idea of that happening within a decade is nothing short of ridiculous.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;langpop.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;langpop.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;githut.info&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;githut.info&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;trends&amp;#x2F;explore#q=ruby%2C%20rails%2C%20javascript%2C%20node%2C%20java&amp;amp;cmpt=q&amp;amp;tz=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;trends&amp;#x2F;explore#q=ruby%2C%20rails%2C%2...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Popular JavaScript Package Manager Npm Raises $8M, Launches Private Modules</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/14/popular-javascript-package-manager-npm-raises-8m-launches-private-modules</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattmanser</author><text>Do I just not get the scale? For this investment to make sense, they would have to get to $100s of million dollars, but by charging a few thousand companies $7?&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;d say there&amp;#x27;s a 50&amp;#x2F;50 chance node will completely collapse within 10 years or so. And that&amp;#x27;s being generous, javascript is a controversial language and the standards committee moves very slowly. I honestly can&amp;#x27;t see it staying king once browsers can support other languages. You only have to see how fast Ruby was a darling and even now might be regarded on its swan song, less than 10 years later. Tech changes, the next big language will hit soon.&lt;p&gt;Congratulations to them and all that, and great product, I&amp;#x27;m just wondering if someone can explain the sense in investing so much money into something like this? As this seems an incredibly risky venture?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;I honestly can&amp;#x27;t see it staying king once browsers can support other languages.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;But your profile says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;, begrudgingly beginning to accept the browsers are never going to give us the freedom to choose.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It looks like you&amp;#x27;ve got some cognitive dissonance happening there. :-)&lt;p&gt;In any case, I can&amp;#x27;t think of any example in computing history where a language that&amp;#x27;s adopted by &lt;i&gt;multiple companies&lt;/i&gt; is then abandoned for another language.  In Javascript&amp;#x27;s case, it would require that Microsoft IE AND Apple Safari AND Google Chrome AND Mozilla FF AND countless other web browsers (Opera, embedded, etc) switch to something else in lockstep.  In the decades of computing history, I&amp;#x27;ve never seen that type coordination ever happen.&lt;p&gt;Similar language entrenchment on the scale of Javascript would be something like SQL and C++.&lt;p&gt;SQL (1974) is implemented by Oracle&amp;#x2F;Microsoft&amp;#x2F;MySql&amp;#x2F;PostgreSQL&amp;#x2F;HiveHadoop&amp;#x2F;etc.  A better query language could be designed (e.g. syntax of tables first then columns).  However, it&amp;#x27;s just theoretical because you can&amp;#x27;t get all database vendors to adopt it lockstep.  We are stuck with SQL for the next 50 years.&lt;p&gt;C++ (1983) entrenchment also can&amp;#x27;t be dislodged.  It is implemented by the well-known big-3 of GCC, Clang, and Microsoft but you also have independent compiler implementations from Intel, HP, Sun, IBM, embedded chips, etc.  The newer systems languages such as D and Rust are interesting but they will not get adopted and implemented by all those vendors.  It&amp;#x27;s just not going to happen.&lt;p&gt;Look to the multi-decade history of SQL and C++&amp;#x2F;C and that&amp;#x27;s the depth of entrenchment you&amp;#x27;re looking at for Javascript.  Better designed languages have not overcome the inertia in the industry and we have no evidence so far that it ever will.  Therefore, Javascript will be with us for the next 50+ years.&lt;p&gt;Probably the best chance for making Javascript irrelevant was the brief plugins movement of Java applets, Adobe Flash, and MS Silverlight.  Well, the marketplace of ideas (mobile phones) killed all of those off.  What&amp;#x27;s left standing is Javascript.</text></comment>