On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Jan Lehnardt <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Jan 31, 2013, at 17:14 , Benoit Chesneau <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Jason Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Benoit Chesneau <[email protected] > >>> wrote: > >> > >>> Here are some notes following your *enthousiast* mail. There is not > >>> intention to diminish the work or things like it. It is intended to > >> temper > >>> a little this enthousiast and trying to find the right approach on the > >>> problems we are trying to solve. > >>> > >> > >> Totally! Like I said, I would never use this code in production. It is a > >> highly experimental branch. I have a roadmap for this branch; but the > real > >> goal is conversation. > >> > >> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Jason Smith <[email protected]> > wrote: > >>> > >>>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Randall Leeds < > >> [email protected] > >>>>> wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:23 AM, Jason Smith <[email protected]> > >>> wrote: > >>>>>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:55 PM, Paul Davis < > >>>>> [email protected]>wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> That whole process sounds like not a lot of fun. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Right. That is kind of my point. CouchDB is a JavaScript thing, and > >>>>>> nowadays people have a very well-adopted and well-understood > >>> JavaScript > >>>>>> engine on their computers. Maybe it should just use that. > >>>>> > >>>>> (Some) developers have node installed (or can install it easily). End > >>>>> users are a totally different story. They may be able to install it, > >>>>> but we're talking about adding a runtime dependency unless we bundle > >>>>> node. > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> Quite right. This branch answers half that question: what do you get? > >>>> > >>>> So far, this is my list of good things I've seen: > >>>> > >>>> 1. Better code. > >>>> 1a. Cut almost 3,000 lines of code > >>>> 1b. Exchanged SM build dependency for Node runtime dependency. This > >> right > >>>> here--this summarizes the whole exercise. > >>>> > >>>> 2. Very encouraging degree of compatibility. Consider, the 1,500 lines > >> of > >>>> view server JS code: none of it was ever intended for Node.js. But the > >>> test > >>>> suite shows, the two are virtually identical. > >>>> > >>>> 3. Apparently this is already easier to use than homebrew. Homebrew > >> pins > >>>> SM apparently to support Mongo (unsure if the latter is true). > >>>> > >>>> 4. Got a lot of enthusiasm. (A lot of people tested it and emailed to > >> ask > >>>> "why isn't it faster?"). This thread got a lot of feedback about new > >>>> protocols, and async APIs, and app-building features. Why? I think > when > >>> you > >>>> say Node.js and CouchDB everybody says "Yes!" > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> I say "maybe". nodejs is quite trendy. but also quite new and didn't > >> really > >>> prove anything right now. It is quite surpassed by a pure C thing like > >>> nginx/uwsgi when it's about http, and when it's about stability by > erlang > >>> or some. I also never had any need of nodejs when it was about doing > >> things > >>> with couchdb. Differerent approach I guess. Not saying the nodejs is a > >> bad > >>> one. If it solves your problems or at least is easier for you to handle > >>> then that's perfectly fine. One true thing is that javascript is > really > >>> user friendly and this thing is the one that count. > >>> > >> > >> I agree about the "trendy" concern. That is part of the cost, for sure. > >> > >> I am not sure what point you are making, about the http stack and > >> stability. I believe a pure-node view server can meet your performance > and > >> stability requirements. > >> > >> > >>> About the number of lines. Well you don't count all the lines in > >> nodejs+v8 > >>> as well ... but the number of loc isn't really an argument I guess. > >>> > >>> > >>>> Imagine you have CouchDB installed and then a future node version > >>>>> breaks compatibility for some API used by the node-couchjs. You now > >>>>> have to decide whether to upgrade node or try to have multiple node > >>>>> versions so couchjs can continue to work. > >>>>> > >>>>> In short I think this is my issue: we're pushing problems down from > >>>>> maintainers and packagers to users. > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> If you want API stability, then you'll like Node.js. The whole > >> principle > >>> of > >>>> the project is to be "finished" one day. > >>>> > >>>> Node.js is less likely than Python, say, to break a simple, 300-line > >> repl > >>>> program. (My point is: not likely.) But yes, you've put your finger on > >>> it. > >>>> This is a runtime dependency. > >>>> > >>> > >>> This has nothing with the langage. Considering that a lot of big system > >> are > >>> running under python. You can also write a view server in python in one > >> day > >>> as fast as the nodejs server using libuv for example. or other > >> eventloops > >>> that didn't wait nodejs to exist. > >>> > >> > >> Awesome. Please show us a view server written in Python with libuv, > >> completed within one day. That will be very informative to this > discussion. > >> We can look at all the working, real-world view server implementations, > and > >> we can compare them. > >> > > > > > > I wish i had time to play with that. The point is that javascript or > nodejs > > don't change anything. What are advantages of nodejs on a pure technical > > aspect: > > > > - v8 for javascript > > - libuv for everything else > > > > > > if you do it in python then you have python and pyuv. Doing the things > you > > did was the same. Though I don't see the point of having fibers. I think > > what you want here is a TCP or UNix socket to allows request to wait and > > handle them in a parallel way. It would also remove the number of OS > > processes. > > Today, CouchDB supports JavaScript for the sole reason that it is most > widely distributed, developed and exercised programming language and > that the JS required to us CouchDB is little enough to not be scared of > it if your main language is another. This hasn’t changed since we started > this. JS also gets the most engine development of any of the languages > even outpacing Java, but that’s an aside. > > There is no argument to be made that a Python or Ruby or whatever else > is technically similar or potentially even better. We don’t support these > today. > > To be absolutely clear, if a year from now we support all of them, that > be super duper fantastic in my book, really and honestly. > > But that is not a situation that we are in today, so asking how this is > better than a Python server is easy to answer: because Python is not JS. > > Best > Jan > -- > > I didn't say python was superior or that I wanted a python version. I don't. I am all for having JS in couchdb. I was answering to jason argument. Javascript has nothing to do with performance or ease of code. And like I said the true thing is that javascript is really user-friendly and has an awesome community that support it. - benoît
