How useful is Javascript (Node.js)?

Gogol said:

What, so python isn't a good choice for scrapping? Well, best of luck learning a completely new language when you can do it with python only lol.
Also to the person who said frontend js = backend js.. Nah bro, it isn't. Even the context is different. You don't use js for the same reason in front-end, as you do in backend.. ...

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I just finished learning python lately well not everything but i have a good knowledge i intended to use selenium for aitomation turns out selenium is runing on geadless mode which is 1000% detectable tried using pyautogui same and now im learning requests im going to start learning javascript abd nodejs later this month soo yess nodejs for scraping and automation is 1000000% better then python

ahmedmani said:

I just finished learning python lately well not everything but i have a good knowledge i intended to use selenium for aitomation turns out selenium is runing on geadless mode which is 1000% detectable tried using pyautogui same and now im learning requests im going to start learning javascript abd nodejs later this month soo yess nodejs for scraping and automation is 1000000% better then python

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I did not understand a thing you said lol. Can you rephrase?

jazzc said:

Obviously you don't, just like you don't use wood the same way in a house and in a boat. The point is that you're proficient in woodwork.

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Well the problem is that because the context is different, development becomes pretty much different than what I am used to in frontend. Yes, same libraries can mostly be ported to the backend JS. However, the window object is not there in node afaik (global is there i guess, but it is not exactly the same thing). That makes it much different than frontend JS IMHO. Also, I am a frontend JS developer... Still, I find backend JS pretty alien lol. May be I am not paying enough attention.

Gogol said:

I did not understand a thing you said lol. Can you rephrase?

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Yeah sorry was typing while walking what i meant is that python can be easily detected selenium runs on a headless webdriver every site can block you based on that you can still use selenium on simpler websites but on big sites its not helpful at all requests in the other hand sends requests just like a browser you can fake a header and even post cookies it can act exactly like a browser and tbh its a great tool with simple syntax for anyone looking to automate some tasks and dont know what language to learn just learn nodejs and puppeteer its similar to selenium and it has headed mode eventho python is a easy great language id recommend learning it at some point u might end up using more then youd think

ahmedmani said:

Yeah sorry was typing while walking what i meant is that python can be easily detected selenium runs on a headless webdriver every site can block you based on that you can still use selenium on simpler websites but on big sites its not helpful at all requests in the other hand sends requests just like a browser you can fake a header and even post cookies it can act exactly like a browser and tbh its a great tool with simple syntax for anyone looking to automate some tasks and dont know what language to learn just learn nodejs and puppeteer its similar to selenium and it has headed mode eventho python is a easy great language id recommend learning it at some point u might end up using more then youd think

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Well there's ways to prevent sites detecting that you are using selenium. Here's a recent thread which discusses the options. As for syntax, I am not sure what to say. as I mentioned in my last reply, I am a JS developer, so it might actually be easy for me to learn backend JS. Still, I love how python's syntax works. So, personal preference I guess.

Yes it's good and popular with puppeteer. JavaScript is really popular these days. This comes with a downside: Websites that want to protect against scraping/automation will choose to protect against puppeteer than selenium if they have to choose, simply because it is popular. I've come across some sites before that would detect puppeteer even with the stealth plugin (yes there is that), but would work with selenium + firefox with no changes.

Also it's not hard to automate/scrape websites with JS/Selenium, the difficulty starts when they want to prevent it, usually I will try to automate with Puppeteer and Selenium, if they detect both I will resort to full browser/desktop automation on a VM, it's not worth the hassle to reverse minified javascript and all that shit to see what they're doing to detect.

JavaScript (as much as I loathe it), is extremely useful. You can build for the web, mobile, desktop, console (scripts), etc. I've made a lot of $ from it.

However, i'd definitely go with python if given the choice as JavaScript is too annoying for me.

rafark said:

JavaScript (as much as I loathe it), is extremely useful. You can build for the web, mobile, desktop, console (scripts), etc. I've made a lot of $ from it.

However, i'd definitely go with python if given the choice as JavaScript is too annoying for me.

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Have you tried typescript? After using it, development feels so much better.

ulaho said:

Have you tried typescript? After using it, development feels so much better.

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I'm currently using Babel + webpack. It makes things a bit better but having to use a development server is not as smooth as I'd like it.