In my experience, node.js is a terrible choice for most web applications. If you really need real-time, sure, go for it. But if you're interested in node as an alternative to rails/sinatra/django/flask, then stay away from it. The cool stuff you get for free like coffeescript/jade/stylus can also work with the ruby and python frameworks.
Node sucks for general web apps because you have to program everything asynchronously. This is a major step backwards, and quite frankly it feels to me like trying to program in assembly. It's not expressive at all. You have to write your program in some pseudo code, then translate that to async code. And what for? What's the advantage you'll get? scalability? Who says you will need it? This is exactly where you should remember that premature optimization is the root of all evil.
I can second this. When I first found out about node, I wanted to write all my web apps in it. I quickly found out that made no sense at all.
It might be a bit more performant than Django (my go to framework), but the amount of time it took me to produce the same work made it impractical.
The one web app situation I would use it for is when I have to make a request to a couple of databases/caches/etc, and each response isn't dependent on the others. That would make node far more performant than a sync framework. But this situation rarely seems to arise.
> Node sucks for general web apps because you have to program everything asynchronously.
To be fair, the exact problem is not async itself, but forcing CPS (continuation-passing style) for serial routines. For example, gevent and eventlet use greenlets (coroutines for Python) to avoid unnecessary callbacks in serial routines.
Node sucks for general web apps because you have to program everything asynchronously. This is a major step backwards, and quite frankly it feels to me like trying to program in assembly. It's not expressive at all. You have to write your program in some pseudo code, then translate that to async code. And what for? What's the advantage you'll get? scalability? Who says you will need it? This is exactly where you should remember that premature optimization is the root of all evil.