Is Node.js one of the most widely used scripting languages on the Internet? Really?

; Date: Thu Mar 31 2011

Tags: JavaScript »»»» Node.JS

I can believe JavaScript is one of the most widely used scripting languages, but Node.js? Huh? But, over there on embed.ly they have published two libraries implementing the embed.ly API for PHP and Node.js, and claimed "These two libraries give you server-side access via the two most widely used scripting languages today."

Really? Yes, Node.js is getting a lot of attention but does that mean it's one of the two most widely used scripting languages? What about the old fuddyduddy (grin) language platforms like Perl or Python? Surely more people are using them for writing scripts than the number of people using Node.js.

To be fair - I'm excited about Node.js and am lucky enough to be working pretty deeply with it at my day job. But let's be real, Node.js is at a very early development stage where there's no way the user base matches platforms like Perl or Python. If they had said "JavaScript" that would be one thing, but they specifically said Node.js.

I suppose there's a different way to look at this. It's some kind of validation of Node.js that the marketeer for a startup company would claim Node.js is a leading platform.

I think it's clear that by the numbers Node.js isn't a widely used scripting platform. But in terms of buzz and developer interest, it's a hot and moving thing.

While I'm here I should back up for a sec and say what embed.ly is. Yesterday I wrote a blog post, Could Storify be implemented in Drupal?, talking about a feature I saw on the Storify website. That a link to say http://twitter.com/7genblogger would turn into a useful widget on the page rather than just remaining as a simple URL/link. It looks really cool over on the Storify website, and I had a brain fart idea about how to implement it for Drupal. I didn't know about embed.ly but it turns out they run a service doing this exact thing.