> I've used node on several high-volume production apps, and I haven't seen any instability.
Not sure if this is what you meant, but I read the ancestor comment not as being about "will the process crash randomly?" but "will an upgrade break something in my app?"
It's just that I've seen whole comment threads go by with people tripping over this misunderstanding without ever acknowledging it.
Makes sense, on a rereading.
npm coupled with drastically and frequently changing libraries (and transitive dependency clashes) does make a hell of a dependency mess; I agree.
But, on the plus side, most node libraries are easy to modify. In fact, I have a private repository full of github forks that I've had to make over the years (and not had the time or patience to submit pull requests). Luckily, npm supports private repos easily.
Node has its place, and it's not for everything, but for quickly whipping together sturdy, flexible web APIs, it's great.