Node-js with gtk plugin

Installing the nodejs programming language is surprisingly easiy in fedora. A simple “sudo dnf install nodejs” will make the job. Additional packages can be installed with “npm node-gtk”, which is not recommended from the official fedora manual https://developer.fedoraproject.org/tech/languages/nodejs/modules.html but on my local PC it works.

What the user gets in return is a python like envirionment for creating easily GUI applications. But it's not normal python code, but it was written in node-js. The advantage is, that the underlying just-in-time compiler is more efficient. It has the same – or even a better – speed than C code and it can outperform Python programs easily. It's not very hard to predict, that nodejs is the next big thing in programming, or it has even reached it's height, but some programmers have ignored the situation in the past.

The full potential of nodejs is that it can be easily combined with existing browser plugins, for example threejs, webgl and similar projects. This allows to write operating system independent software. So we can say, that nodejs is the better Java? It's unclear how to define the language, becaues it's very new. In contrast to most of the other languages like C++, Java, Python and C# the amount of literature is small and many things are changing. What we can say for sure is, that serious security bugs are available, https://linuxsecurity.com/advisories/fedora/fedora-31-nodejs-fedora-2020-595ce5e3cc-12-08-57

What makes nodejs so interesting is, that it tries to reinvent the wheel at many places at the same time. There are tutorials available in which PHP programmers are teached to switch to nodejs because it's the better programming language. Ok, many languages are arguing in this way. But there are also books available in which Java programmers are educated that nodejs is a here to stay. The same is true for C programmers, Python programmers, go programmers and so on. Basically spoken, nodejs promis to become the better alternative for all programming language, except Forth ;-) That means, nodejs isn't working with the inverse polish notation which makes it a poor choice for professional programmers, but this is the only disadvantage available.