A web development project includes a lot of programming languages for server coding. But this
is not enough. You may also need a web framework, JavaScript coding, a database, and so on.
Many toolmakers understood this was not the way to go and began to concentrate on
combining some of those elements into more comprehensive Web solutions. In the era of
dynamic programming and agile development, there are 2 best solutions for Web development
– NodeJS and OPA. You can hire Nodejs development services if you wish to hire NodeJS.
Node.js is a Web server development platform based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. To
reduce overhead and increase scalability, it is event-driven and leverages asynchronous I/O. It
allows server-side code in JavaScript.
OPA is a platform for creating web apps. It is a programming language as well as a runtime
engine that integrates all the features that are necessary for web development. It uses the
same asynchronous module as Node.js.
Node.js and OPA, both are open-source and both focus on the web rather than just generic
programming. But there are many differences between both these technologies, and in this
post, we will discuss those differences.
NODEJS DEVELOPMENT VS OPA
- Productivity
Developer productivity is a crucial parameter that is used to select the tool for
development. Developer productivity is important because if you can develop fast then
you can innovate too. You can swiftly generate prototypes and respond to changing
market and user requirements.
If we compare NodeJS development and OPA on a productivity basis, then the
distribution model of OPA offers primitives of distributed sessions. It makes setting up
asynchronous communication between clients and servers very easy. While, in Node,
you cannot find ease in setting up communications that affect productivity. - Building User Interface
NodeJS and OPA make use of HTML and CSS to build UIs. But if we talk about NodeJS,
then Node.js has no particular support for HTML. Therefore, markdown is simply
constructed as a string using string concatenation. But there are a lot of problems with
this way like developers are not able to do validation of the authenticity of markdown.
But even more important, this poses a significant security risk.
Because HTML is regarded as a string, careful coding is required to avoid the potential of
XSS insertion (where the attacker can inject and execute client-side script in the app).
If OPA is considered then, in OPA HTML is a data type with unique syntactic support that
makes it simple for developers to write. So, the problems that were faced in Node can
be solved by using OPA. Because the ill-formed markdown will be rejected by the
compiler. - Real-time chats
Real-time chat is a good benchmark for comparison, as it involves extensive
client/server communication. Node.JS provides all the required functionalities for real-
time chats. The Event API in Node allows you to create “emitters,” which are named
events that are periodically emitted and “listened” to by event handlers. This feature
makes server-side events and pushes notifications, which are common in instant
messaging and other real-time applications, simple to create.
If we talk about OPA, then it also allows very good functionalities for real-time chats and
is on par with Node in this matter. So, if we see, then in developing real-time chats, the
performance of both platforms is almost the same. - Client and server-side coding
NodeJS provides an explicit approach for the client and server-side coding. The
separation of client and server is done at the level of source code. Some files will be
delivered to users as part of the Web page, while others will be interpreted by Node on
the server.
In OPA, there is no separation between the client and server-side of the code. Once the
application code is written, the OPA compiler will figure out which code should be
delivered to the client and which should be run on the server. The developer can change
those decisions by using client or server directives as prefixes to functions. So, the
moving code between client and server is as simple as changing directives. - Debugging
In NodeJS, the JavaScript code is written for both client & server. For debugging the
NodeJS applications, there are 2 options available – Node inspector and V8 debugger.
You can hire nodejs developers for this process.
In OPA, the client-side server can be automatically generated from the concise OPA
code. Debugging becomes a little bit complicated in OPA as the client code is an
automatically created JavaScript; as such, it is far less understandable than other auto-
generated code.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we would say that both of these platforms are very rich in functionalities and
offer various benefits to the developers. With the introduction of these platforms, web
development has become simple to an extent. In this post, we have compared and mentioned
the difference between both platforms on various parameters. But, it should be noted that
Node.JS is a popular platform and is used widely and on the other hand, OPA is for people who
want to invest in the new technology of the future.
