Blake Miner's Blog

This article is for those of us who have heard all of the buzz about Node.JS and they need to convince their boss or their clients to make the switch.  Or, perhaps... you're not quite convinced yet? Why Node.JS? Reason #1 - JavaScript is awesome.  So, in case you didn't know, JavaScript is awesome.  I'll let you read my other blog post  for more details, but I'll also summarize for you: The language itself is extremely powerful.  JavaScript comes packed with modern programming language features like closures, dynamic data types, first-class and higher-order functions, prototypes (not classes), lack of concurrency  (more on this later), exception handling, garbage collection, and much, much more!  These features help make your code better, keep you from making mistakes, and make your applications more bulletproof. JavaScript is widely adopted.  It's the scripting language of the web.  Need I say more?  Almost any device with a web...

Here's a bold statement... (so I made the font bold) JavaScript is the best programming language Here's why... The language is extremely powerful .  Let's imagine that we are inventing a new programming language.  The most important thing we will focus on is "power."  That means... write more elegant , more flexible , more readable programs... and write them  even faster . Closures.  A completely awesome, overlooked feature of JavaScript that we all (hopefully) take for granted.  Closures allow you to create a new instance of a function which retains access to the context in which it was created.  Examples are here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_(computer_science) . Dynamic data types.  JavaScript variables aren't restricted to any particular datatype.  Store a String, store a number, or store an Object.  JavaScript automatically casts datatypes back and forth as needed. Objects are basically associ...