openstack team mailing list archive

[Caitlin Bestler <Caitlin.Bestler@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jan Drake wrote:


> For what it's worth, I've noticed a generally myopic trend towards python only.  Node.js can play many very good roles as an
> implementation strategy for various openstack capabilities, especially at the edge.  I was excited to see it being included. 
> There's a balance to be struck in optimizing the development community, especially for core openstack, around a limite
> set of languages; however, I've never trusted an engineer who's ever only coded (or still only codes) in one language.

> So, consider this a nudge in the direction of being open to additional technology sets and languages (not blindly randomly or chaotically).

If we were launching the project from scratch and the question was which language would be better, node.js or python, I would
Strongly advocate node.js.

However, I do not think there is anything "myopic" about wanting to limit the dependencies that the host OS must provide
to support your project, or the amount of learning that is required before a team of developers can be proficient with the
code base for a project.

Once a second major ecosystem is introduced, whether node.js or just a different python threading library, all of the release
decisions become more complex from that day forward. It is not just when to support a new version of the python libraries,
but which python *and* node.js libraries will be supported in the next project release. That extra release work must be undertaken
by each OS distribution that supports openstack.

Any shift in the ecosystem will be a major undertaking, it should only be considered when the costs of not doing it become onerous.