CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsqt
Guid
Guid

Reputation: 2216

hesitation between two technologies for a little program

I want to make a program (more precisely, a service) that periodically scans directories to find some video files (.avi, .mkv, etc) and automatically download some associated files (mostly subtitles) from one or several websites.
This program could run on linux or windows as well.

On one hand, I know well Qt from a long time and I know all its benefits, but on the other hand, I'm attracted by node.js and it extreme flexibility and liveliness.

I need to offer some interactivity with the end user of my program (for instance, chose the scans directories, etc).

What would be the best choice in your opinion in 2013?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 80

Answers (1)

dualed
dualed

Reputation: 10512

I advise against Node.js for "small tools and programs". Especially for iterative tasks.

The long story

The reason is quite simply the way Node.js works. Its asynchronous model makes simple tasks unnecessarily convoluted. Additionally, because many callbacks are called from the Node.js event loop, you can't just use try/catch structures so every tiny error will crash your whole Application.

Of course there are ways to catch those errors or work with them, but the docs advise you against all of them and advise you to restart the application gracefully in any case to prevent memory leaks. This means you have to implement yet another piece of code.

The only real solution in Node.js would be writing your Application as a Cluster, which is a great concept but of course would require you to use some kind of IPC to get your data back to a process that can handle it.

Also, since you wrote about "periodically scan"ning a directory, I want to point out that you should...

Use file system watchers for services

Almost every language kit has those now and I strongly suggest using those and only use a fallback full-scan.

Upvotes: 1

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