The nodejs javascript interpreter is probably really great.  It has the newly discovered event driven programming model built in!

At [SAO] we have been delivering image display and analysis programs to the astronomical community for over 30 years (since the dawn of computing).  Maybe a little late in coming to the Web, but we are now prototyping a version of our code as a distributed image display running in the browser with a back end helper.  The first beta of the back end is written in nodejs.

Here is my experience in installing it on my CentOS5.5 vps.

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Eric,

Nodejs is not a simple install on Hopper:


Get the binary:

    wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.10.0/node-v0.10.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
    cd node-v0.10.0-linux-x64
    cp bin/* ~/bin
    cp -r lib/* ~/lib/.

    -bash-3.2$ node js9Helper.js
    node: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.7' not found (required by node)


My vps hopper.si.edu is running CentOS 5.5.  This means that there is no pre-built binary for node.  To build node you have to have python2.7, CentOS has python 2.4.  I have to install python.  Python 2.7 does not come with bzip2 source, but node is using the bzip2 source from the python tree!!.  I have to install bzip2 source.

This is all explained here:

    http://midnightcodr.github.com/blog/2012/11/22/install-node-dot-js-v0-dot-8-14-onto-centos-5-howto/

People just don't get the issues with buy in.

Why is building node dependent on python at all?

Downloading the node source I see that "./configure" for node is written in python, and depends on crappy "conditional assignment" syntax bullshit because "of course every one has python 2.7".

    ./configure --prefix=/home/john   
      File "./configure", line 433
        fpu = 'vfpv3' if armv7 else 'vfpv2'
                   ^
    SyntaxError: invalid syntax

I was able to build and install node by explicitly running the ./configure in node with python2.7 which of course I do have installed (but for a completely different service running on hopper):

    wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.10.0/node-v0.10.0.tar.gz
    python2.7 ./configure --prefix=/home/john
    make
    make install

But now I know way more than I want to.  I also know that the nodejs developers have made no attempt to be portable.  They likely don't even know what that means.  In the end its not that it's hard to get everything just so for nodejs.  It's that every little dependency is just one more thing.  Every install has just one more thing. 


Maybe you could rewrite the helper in Tcl and deliver it as a starkit? (Sorry, just couldn't help myself).

Thanks,

John