how many of you know what node is? how many have used it? how many of you have production apps running on it?
node.js is new, and there is still a lot of re-inventing the wheel going on
many packages, some better than others
everything is being actively developed, for better and worse
node is very low-level
express is slightly higher-level, sinatra, not rails
includes things like routing and logging
and tons of plugins via the connect middleware that it’s built on