A cool hack, but I can't help this feeling pointless in practice.
It solves the problem of using Node userland code to do heavy computation. But
a) serious developers know better than to do heavy computation inside of Node anyway, and
b) it comes at an enormous, almost unforgivable cost: working with C++ is a nightmare compared to working with Node when it comes to realtime web projects (I've been in those trenches)
What would be exponentially more useful in practice is a concise, well-documented way to hook (multithreaded) C++ code into Node's engine.
But that wouldn't be nearly as sexy as a promise of Node, but with native performance.
Without commenting on Node.native, I'd just like to note that C++11 isn't your grandparents' C++ anymore. An experienced programmer probably can write code in C++11 that is almost as elegant as, say, the equivalent C# code. And for larger projects many people would prefer something like C# to JavaScript, if only for the static typing.
I've actually been using C++11 for two years now (experimental stuff in GCC), and yes I agree: C++ is loads better than it used to be, and it's a pleasure to work with.
That still doesn't mean it's a good idea to write a full web app in a C++ event loop while doing your own memory management. I've tried this (in C++11 no less), and it took nearly 30K LOC for me to admit defeat. I wish I were joking.
the problem isn't writing code, the problem is build environment and deployment - correct versions of compilers, headers, libraries, makefiles, cmakelists, wafs, scons', bjams, whatevers...
No. Its not. I've been programming primarily in C++ for a few years (been using it as a hobbyist programmer since about 2002 and on and off professionally over the last 4 years) and this has never been an issue for me.
I used to feel that way about Make until I tried Rake. I'll never go back now, I think build scripts feel the need for a general purpose language often enough that it really pays to have them as an embedded DSL in a scripting language.
sudo apt-get a few packages is great when it works, but if you want/need a newer boost version, you're on your own. Makefiles are tedious to write and maintain in anything but a toy application. That's not to say everything else isn't, but most of the time you can save yourself some hassle.
It solves the problem of using Node userland code to do heavy computation. But
a) serious developers know better than to do heavy computation inside of Node anyway, and
b) it comes at an enormous, almost unforgivable cost: working with C++ is a nightmare compared to working with Node when it comes to realtime web projects (I've been in those trenches)
What would be exponentially more useful in practice is a concise, well-documented way to hook (multithreaded) C++ code into Node's engine.
But that wouldn't be nearly as sexy as a promise of Node, but with native performance.