I don&#x27;t think how Netscape&#x27;s SSJS worked is irrelevant at all. There is a huge difference[0] between Node as a JS environment for writing applications and Netscape&#x27;s SSJS as an environment for writing &quot;server pages&quot;.<p>Node is for writing small standalone services. Netscape&#x27;s SSJS was for creating dynamic web pages -- just like CGI scripts or (at the time) PHP.<p>SSJS may be considered prior art for &quot;JS on the server&quot; but it&#x27;s barely recognizable. As far as I can tell the execution was entirely synchronous; but Node is defined by its evented -- and therefore asynchronous -- I&#x2F;O. It&#x27;s <i>a</i> data point for comparison but it&#x27;s not a good lesson to learn from, other than what not to do.<p>A lot of the shortcomings of Node come from the limitations of JS at the time. Callbacks and streams (arguably two of the biggest issues with Node) are a result of Node being asynchronous. At the time, event listeners and callbacks were the best tool JS offered and the best thing the JS community had.<p>I can only imagine you&#x27;re trying to say that Node should have taken more inspiration from other languages that solve problems better (like gradual typing, or the Maybe monad or the actor model). But none of this has anything to do with Netscape&#x27;s SSJS.<p>You explicitly point out Netscape&#x27;s SSJS as a part of history Node should have learned from. What specifically do you think Node should have learned from it? Are you just trying to say &quot;SSJS is a bad idea (because Netscape&#x27;s SSJS was bad) and shouldn&#x27;t have been attempted again, even in an entirely different way&quot;?<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;18350910&#x2F;netscape-enterprise-server-and-server-side-javascript-ssjs-vs-node-js" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;18350910&#x2F;netscape-enterpr...</a>