Before Node was popular, I tried a command-line JS engine called Narwhal.  It was built by 280 North, and as I recall, it had pluggable engines.  I remember being surprised at how much faster JSCore (Safari&#x27;s) felt than the others.<p>Not being permanently coupled to a particular platform is probably a good thing for Node, and provides a healthy incentive for V8 to stay on-top of its game.