After Netscape dissolved into Mozilla, new stacks with JavaScript have come and gone as the true believers try again and again. Now some 15 years later, JavaScript on the server is back in vogue.

In 2007, AppJet provided a service (now discontinued) for creating and hosting server-side JavaScript applications. Aptana offers an IDE for front-to-back JavaScript Web applications called Jaxer.

The second missing piece was a server, similar either to Tomcat/Jetty for Java or Mongrel/Thin for Ruby, that provides a real environment, includes the necessary modules and is easy to use. Most ...

But JavaScript did have capabilities such as closures and anonymous functions, Dahl noted: “That kind of set the stage to introduce a new server paradigm that focuses on nonblocking I/0.” ...