I'm considering using node.js + expresso + couchdb. What worries me is the CPU overhead on the servers for using javascript. How much CPU is needed to run such an app or a service like Trello which I heard is (was?) using node.js. The scalability is a Maserati problem.
It would just like to know how steep is the curve of the required power relative to the number of users for a small messaging app with one database per user (a.k.a. zimbra) ?
For the people who haven't figured out how this works: you can move a little stick-figure around and type; the text will appear above the little figure's head.
The other figures are moved by other people visiting the site, who can also type stuff. So you have a chat system.
(Is it just me, or does everybody seeing node.js for the first time want to make a chat system of some sort? It's the first thing I did, although mine wasn't nearly as cool as this one. :p)
I've been playing a lot with canvas recently and building libraries to abstract away all the low-level stuff and just deal directly with the entities you actually care about working with. Exciting stuff. Cool to see what other people are doing with it.
It's viable. Drivers exist for most of the interesting storage engines you'd use for user records, leaderboards and the like. You'll need to pay attention to any server-side operations that require heavy CPU and ensure those tasks don't block time-critical operations.
You may or may not get the same level of concurrency as someone's custom-tuned C++ backend, but you won't have to pay an arm and a leg to license it, either. :)
ha ha. I experienced similar behavior on my own experiment (http://jamescryer.no.de/codesign#open). Is this a question of personal maturity or simply human nature?
You can check the code for the app at - https://github.com/indutny/home.
If you feel like giving node a try this page will get you a nodejitsu invite: - http://gimmesomebeta.jit.su