1. Using the same programming language on both sides of HTTP often appeals to a developers visceral sense of elegance, or tidiness, even though it this alone inherently solves no existing problems.
2. It's powered by Googles V8 engine, which means people already associate it with this "super fast JIT" thing that lives in their favourite browser. It must be efficient, right?
3. The crowned alternative is PHP which is slowly becoming Java and alienating, with no disrespect to anyone intended, the less experienced, the "let's just hack a script together" crowd.
I've recently worked on a few web apps which use ClojureScript/Clojure on the the client/server. Prior to that I mostly worked on web apps that were CoffeeScript/Python.
The first difference I took note of was how easy and seamless it was to move EDN structures back and forth between the client and the server. Of course this is a pretty minor difference as it's not exactly hard to pass JSON back and forth from CoffeeScript (or Javascript) to Python.
But then I started using Prismatic's Schema library. Schema is essentially a lightweight (gradual/optional) type system. Schema is written in cljx which means it works with both Clojure and ClojureScript. This means I could write my schema definitions once (also in cljx) and use them on both sides of the pipe. Schemas end up being similar to class hierarchies in an OO language. (So, for example, in one project I had a User schema and a Project schema and Project's had an "owner" fieldthat was a User, etc).
This ended up being really nice because now I still get the full dynamicity of Clojure(Script) but everywhere that I'm dealing with these core "types" I can validate the schemas. So I validated them going in/out of database access functions, I validated them going in/out of the server, in/out of the client, in/out of various specific functions on both the client and the server, etc. Wherever it made sense.
Of course in my old CoffeeScript+Python days there was nothing stopping me or anyone else from writing something like Schema and implementing both CoffeeScript and Python versions but it would be a lot more work upfront and in perpetuity to maintain 2 versions. But be that as a it may, for whatever reason, this type of tool doesn't actually get created that often in more heterogenous environments. (And I would argue they on balance, not as powerful/effective/simple/etc when they are created in those environments).
But honestly, for me personally, I think the biggest benefit of using a single language is just the reduction in mental baggage and context switching you have to deal with. I never found CoffeeScript+Python (or Javascript+Ruby or Javascript+Java or whatever) particularly challenging or wearisome while I was working with them, but having now accumulated a significant number of hours on the ClojureScript+Clojure combo it's very noticeable when I go back and work on old heterogenous projects.
Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, and my experience is definitely biased by the fact that Clojure and ClojureScript are just such a pleasure to work with all around. In the end though, while I'm not personally a fan of Javascript or Node.js, I now fully understand why the people that like Javascript love Node.js for giving them the gift of single language development.
Outside of that (+1) because yes, I completely agree.
And a lot of the use cases aren't sharing code or even have a client/server setup. Like crappy non-parallel build systems being written from scratch using Nodejs.
This thread's been a bit illuminating. I guess I'm not missing anything technical. Some people like JS I guess and Node exists so why not use it.
Again, as far as I can see it's as simple to hack together a script in PHP as it ever was. What's changing about the language that makes it more like Java?[1]
1. I tried and failed to make this sentence seem as non-passive-aggressive as possible. I'm genuinely interested, as it's not something I've come across and I'm by no means a PHP expert.
