1. apt-get install php5 ? Seriously, that's it. On the other hand, neither Debian stable nor Ubuntu LTS have any usable version of node in their package repository (Debian has nothing, Ubuntu has 0.6)

4. json_decode() ?

5. If Atwood's law ever becomes reality, it will be a consequence, not a source of benefit.

(I don't use either Node or PHP as my main language)

1. You have to be kidding, right? PHP's popularity is precisely because of this.

2. getcomposer.org

4. json_decode/json_encode have been a part of PHP since PHP 5.2 (2006)

5. That's not a benefit.

Composer is terrible compared to NPM.

And so is PHP. You cannot argue that PHP is not simple, you just can't.

And frankly I like composer, sure it doesn't do C/C++ installation stuff, but PHP doesn't need that. What is does is almost identical to NPM, the only different is one looks different, and the names.

Composer accomplishes the goals of being a "modern package manager that works on all platforms".

1. My recent installs of node have required compiling from source to get anything remotely up-to-date, however there are packages for both,

2. Composer with the Packagist registry is comparable here - you might be thinking of PEAR.

3. JS certainly has much better async support - it being JavaScript after all.

4. PHP has JSON encoding/decoding bundled, no third party lib required.

5. For better or worse

I'd trade decent JSON support for decent XML support every single day of the week.

And Scala/Java/JVM have already solved the problems you mention above.

Just out of interest, why is that?

I work with JSON at least once a week, but it can be months between moments when I need to work with any XML.

What is it you think is missing XML-wise in Node.js?

2. Whatever we're saying here includes only NodeJS vs PHP.