The "deal with it" is the same for threads - if you're using a system with threads you have to deal with them and it's generally not too fun. Node is what it is. It's callback based. I didn't mean the "deal with it" in a hostile way, more like that's the kind of system node is so deal with it. Is node great for every kind of problem? No. Definitely not. Actors are great too (and they've usually got threads in them, but they are well contained). But for certain kinds of apps node and the careful use of callbacks work out great. I guess I was trying to counter all of the hating on callbacks - they're not so awful when you get used to them.