 This is Silicon Angles theCUBE, our flagship program with all of you guys sitting in the noise. theCUBE is where we have conversations with thought leaders, executives, folks in the media business from O'Reilly, and just really get the perspective of what's happening at the events. And my next guest is Charlie Keyes, the CEO, co-founder of Modulus.io. Interesting company, startup, kudos in the showcase, startup showcase. Charlie, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. You know, obviously Node.js is really hot here because it allows a lot more cooler things for developers. We, theCUBE, covered the first Node Summit that Charles Bieler put on with Andy Jakes was really an awesome event in San Francisco is the first time they ever got together. But since then, it's been pretty explosive and you guys have built a business on it. So talk about your company and what you guys do and what you guys are doing with developers and some of the cool things you guys have launched two months ago. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we started the company, myself and two other co-founders really started the company because we found this lack of a platform that we could use when we were building out applications. And that's really where the idea for what we'd built to this point has really come out of. We've got one mission for our company and that's to enable developers to get back to building products. And what that means is we can give them a place to host their applications. So we take care of the servers. We give them a place for their data. So we will host their MongoDB database. And in the end, we give them all of the performance metrics they really need to have to know exactly what's going on with their application so they can dive in. And if they do see a problem, they really know exactly where to go and look for that fix. You know, we've seen thousands of developers pick up and jump onto the platform and the short time that we've been around and they've really helped guide a lot of the features and new releases that we've done on the platform. One of the next things that we're getting ready to come out with is the ability to do a Redis database in the same infrastructure. So under the same roof, you can have your Node.js application. You can have your MongoDB database and then you can have your Redis which you're going to use for caching data for these small, quick time pub sub type stuff. And that's because our developers have asked for it time and time again and we really want to make sure that we're giving them the product that they want. So how does Redis fit into that again? Can you back up? Yeah, absolutely. That's really a popular implementation now going on. Yeah, for instance, we use that stack in our infrastructure for our application, for our platform. We use MongoDB to store basically the same information you store in a relational database, our user information, the projects that they have. But we also use Redis and we use it for a lot of caching. So our front end of our website will cache the pages, the articles, our documentation. That's all using caching Redis so we can pull it out quickly, return it back to our customers very fast. And we see a lot of people using Redis for that same kind of work but also for the ability to do pub sub. So publish, subscribe, get real-time updates on data changes and Redis has really stepped up in that kind of arena. We've seen a lot of different people using it for a lot of different reasons but usually it comes down to replacing that kind of caching layer and being able to do interesting things with it. So low latency kind of requests handling? Yeah, yeah, because it keeps the entire dataset in memory. So it's super fast and you don't have to worry about, it's simple. So you do simple things with it. Yeah, so you guys are essentially platformers of service for node. Yep, absolutely. How is that going? Very good so far. We've seen a really good pickup in the last couple of months. We've launched our paid platform on March 1st and since then we've added hundreds and hundreds of developers and hundreds of projects on it and seen a lot of people really picking it up. The great thing about node is in the last year it's basically doubled in popularity. Last year, MPM installs, which is the package management, they were running around 20 million per month. Now we're looking at 40 million plus every single month of packages being installed and being used in Node.js applications so it's been drastically increased over the last year. Why is node so popular with developers right now? What's your opinion on that? There's a few reasons. One is JavaScript and we're sitting here at Fluent Conference so that makes a lot of sense. And the ability to use a single language to build your front end and also build a powerful scalable back end is something that developers have always been trying to do. Node.js is really the first solution that has brought it to a level where people can sit down there and do it well. The other thing is Node.js uses the vented IO paradigm of running actual code and what that gives Node.js the ability to is scale well so it can scale up the number of concurrent requests, the performance that it is running at, it can go up very fast and so you can build these very scalable applications on a simple JavaScript server-side language. Why is the session here Node without code, which is kind of a cool saying from Adobe, but some other tweets out here that's interesting is the AngularJS, what is that about? Because that seems to be popular with the developers of the session because Node attracts certain kind of those guys doing IO stuff, streaming, things like that. What does the AngularJS mean? Well the Angular stuff is mostly front end and it kind of lives in the same kind of paradigms that you're going to see node developers working with and the big thing about Node is you build modular applications, you know, you build small pieces that you can reuse a lot of different places and people on the front end and the client side world are starting to pick up the same kind of mentality when building applications, which is let's build these into smaller pieces that we can reuse and build more complex applications. So in your opinion, you think Node's hot, means it's here to stay? Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you look at, let's look at some of the companies that have really started to pick it up. You saw in the keynote this morning at Fluent, Bill talked about how PayPal is literally trying to move their platform to a Node.js world and they're using it right now for small things and they want to move that into their production world. Companies like LinkedIn, LinkedIn has taken a very big step into working with Node.js on a lot of their stuff. It now powers their entire mobile application, the back end. Walmart Labs and Walmart are trying, are building a lot of new things with Node.js. Microsoft's taking a vested interest in it. These are companies that can make things last for a long time because what you need for things to last is you need these enterprise customers to really grab hold of a technology and run with it and that's what we're seeing with Node.js. That's why it's going to stay around. It's not because there's a lot of little banded developers but it's these big companies that have a vested interest. Yeah, it's interesting. We're living in a modern era where there's a lot of transformation in the enterprise and the spaces where technology literally is old school. I mean, old school is now five, 10 years old. So that's really old school. Maybe it's called high school. I don't know what they want to call it but it's old school. It's not new school. But the new school was looking at different things. So a lot of the new school cutting edge mainstay applications and tools and platforms were built by the people who they built up for themselves. Yahoo with Hadoop, Facebook, Twitter. You're seeing all these guys linked in. There's no commercial off the shelf softwares. They have to actually build it but what's interesting about these web scale companies now called Hyperscale is they have a lot of IO issues. They absolutely do. So that is the world we live in. Mobile devices, you got cloud computing. You have now internet of things. You have the need to address and manage and communicate in real time to edge devices. Right, absolutely. Intel calls it the intelligent edge. So you agree that's 100% the future. Absolutely, I mean, it's because we're continuing to distribute things across the world and the internet and that puts us into an IO world and because where most things are talking to other devices, other APIs, so that's where this starts to happen is really. So LinkedIn and these guys are great bellwethers, as I call them, you know, because they really lock in and they're investing there, but in the future. I mean, LinkedIn just went public. They're still a young company and they're doing extremely well. Their product is iterating. I mean, the product progress that LinkedIn has made on their product since they went public was significant. I mean, I was not really high on LinkedIn as a Rolodex type company but they've transformed into truly social networks. So that's obvious and well documented but I want to get back to where this leads us. So, okay, with those big whales and those innovators, the rest of the market's now catching up. They see it, so there's always that cross in the chasm, kind of the pioneers at the table, they prove it out, the fog is lifted, it's a no brainer, we have to go there. That's kind of the mindset. So what are developers looking for? So that puts a lot of pressure back on the development community to say, okay, yes, I want tools, I need a platform, I need a tooling, so could you just share your experience and what you've learned and from your company and just being in the industry around those developers saying, okay, I'm going to go all in on a node and low latency or a node or whatever. What is the mindset? What are the challenges, opportunities? There's a few things and a lot of it comes down to the resources to learn a new technology and this is documentation, this is people writing about it. This is people building out blogs that talk to people and tell people how to use the technology because let's be honest, a lot of developers live in Google, that's how they find a solution to how to do something and if they're learning a new technology, a lot of that's the same thing. Now you have ones that use books and then we have education platforms where education is really being re-thinked about a lot right now too and we have a lot of new programs out there that teach developers new technologies and we need more documentation out there and we need better people to go out and talk about it a lot and that's really what get more developers involved that help them get to the next level and then what we have to do is we have to talk about what we've done. So we're seeing it a lot more now but PayPal, LinkedIn, these companies need to talk about how they've used the tools, what they've seen good and what they've seen bad and that allows us to learn because we talk about Agile a lot here and learning is a big part of that process. We have to build, we have to measure and we gotta learn and if we learn that stuff we can feed it back into the system and more developers will kind of be headed in the right direction. That's where this concept of best practices come along. What can a developer do to get started? Obviously day one we were setting up, it was Tuesday, you guys were writing code in the hallways, it's about coding right? So you gotta get a hands on approach but walk through a developer mindset, you're a developer, you're like, hey, you know what? I wanna either kick the tires with Node, I wanna just start ingratiating myself into the community, I wanna actually start, I wanna put a project or production app on the table, walk through what they would need to do. So the first thing is let's open up your code editor. If you already know JavaScript that's a great beginning because it's really very much of the same stuff. You have some different paradigms, you have to learn with the asynchronous nature of Node.js but open up a text editor and deciding to build something with it is a great start but beyond that what you should do is find the developers and the communities around you. One is the meetups in town. So if you're in San Francisco here there's some great, great Node.js and JavaScript meetups that you can go to and really get connected with the community. That's a great, great outlet. Get online, join the online communities, get involved with the Google group mailing list. I mean, these things will really start to embed you into the community. And get out there and start, decide that you're gonna build something. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you decide that you're gonna build a project and you dive in and actually start writing code, that's the best way that you're gonna actually get a handle on how this works and where you can kind of get to that level, you know, the 10,000 hours type of thing. You've got to put in the hours to learn the technology. We're here with Charlie Key, the CEO and co-founder of Modules.io. You're an entrepreneur. You're getting a lot of buzz here on the startup showcase. Great conversation. You certainly know what you're talking about. We love Node. We think it's the future. We think it's gonna connect in and create more opportunities. So I want to ask you, why do you think you guys are getting so much buzz here? And talk a little bit about some of the things you guys are doing with developers on your platform. Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things we try to do differently is several things. I mean, the metrics part is important because anybody who's running a production level application, they need to know what's going on. And we looked at that from the beginning. We said, what are the things that you need to be able to do? One, you got to be able to host the application. That's obvious though. I mean, the next is, let's put some data somewhere, but really when it comes down to it, if we're running an application and we don't know what's going on with it, then you're still back at square one, you've got to try to figure out what that problem is happening, where it's happening. And we've seen very, very big pickup from people who want to know what's going on. So they love the statistics, they love the analytics, they love to be able to look at that data and find out what's going wrong with their application, whether it's good or bad. And that gives them information into, do I need to scale this application up? Do I need more performance? All of these things, that allows developers to really get a handle on what's going on. The second thing we've done is, we love being part of the community and we think it's important to get out and talk to people, meet developers, because that's the way you learn. You talk to your customers. And developers are one of our customers and they are important and they help drive. And we think it's really important to get out, talk to them, find out what they are trying to do, find out how they use Node.js, how they use the technologies that we're responsible for providing to them. And lastly, we think it's important to give fanatical support and when people do have a problem, people have a question. No matter if it's just a common question on Node.js or it's a problem with their application, we think it's important to make sure that they get a response and they get the support they need as fast as humanly possible. How many, can you talk about stats on how many developers are using you guys and just some? Yeah, I mean, we've got just around 2,000 developers on the platform right now. Even on two months. And two months, yeah. Okay, two months, cool. We've got around 1,000 different projects and then at any one point in time, there's about 500 running. So 500 production applications are running on the platform right now being hosted. And then hundreds of databases are in our system and that's rapidly increasing day over day. It's awesome stuff. Congratulations, you're on Amazon, you mentioned that tool, you can scale up with those guys and they don't whack you on some hidden charges. But you know, people keep an eye on Amazon. We watch Amazon pretty closely. We're big fans of Amazon. So I want to ask you about something that's been kicked around here. We talk about standards. Some JavaScript, obviously, for all its legacy and importance is not going to go away. Now see, it's a tool, it's a choice for all developers. But there's some baggage with JavaScript. Absolutely. So the talk here is standards, tooling, general purpose, full stack, real software engineering. But one thing that's not being talked about here is web sockets. Web sockets. Could you talk a little bit about why you think it's not being talked about? I mean, I talk to developers all the time and one of the things that I hear is, hey, node and web sockets are like, I mean, they just salivate. Why is that? So I mean, the great thing about node and web sockets in particular is web sockets give you this ability for real time communication from your browser and your server. And it's something that's built into browsers nowadays. It's a new type of communication protocol. And now that's just available at your fingertips. And node has it built in as a first class citizen. And this makes it easy to build real time, communicative applications very, very simply. And you're going to see this in this world. Well, it helps that Firefox is going to treat it as an OS. Yeah. Chrome is an OS. So web sockets becomes not just a compatibility component for some old protocol, PCPIP like thing. It's really different now. It's really part of it. It's really part of an ecosystem. And for real time, it's table stakes. Yeah, absolutely. And we're in a real time world. I mean, you look at the most popular things that everyone is working with today. You pick up your phone and you look at Twitter. I mean, it's a real time application. Chat. All of these things live in a real time world, games today. Most people want to play a game with another person. And they want to play that in real time. This is a technology that can help push that stuff forward and make it easy for everyone to jump in and use it. Certainly for social media and social applications and on cloud, any time of transactional edge type app node and sockets work great. Yeah, absolutely. And especially, we start to look at more technical details on mobile devices and latency and how these things get put together. And how much time do we have to spend creating more connections if we've got a persistent connection between a device and a server? Well, you guys are obviously on the cutting edge. We love what you're doing. Obviously, platform as a service is obviously not a new concept. But what you guys are doing, bringing this kind of service level support for developers, really, is great. It's one of the things we've been hearing is the need. The other thing we've been hearing, I want to get your comments as the final question is, jQuery has been bashed about here and there. And obviously JavaScript has some baggage. But this is evolutionary, right? So those guys, it's grown in a lot of communities. Certainly religious wars discussed around approaches and implementations, code bugs, et cetera. But the future is about a bigger picture, right? So if you could have your magic wand for standards to develop, if you could say, hey, I'd like to see the preferred future look like this. What does the JavaScript community need for that standard? Because you're seeing general tooling happening. You guys are doing this platform level, you're seeing these general purpose environments. The standards thing is still an open question is why I brought up WebSockets. Yeah, I mean, that's a hard question. I mean, you look at things like... It's a big deal, though. It's a big deal. I saw a very good analogy. JavaScript has now become the assembly language for browsers. And hopefully we can use that as a technology and that other people are compiling to right now. I mean, you look at CoffeeScript. I mean, CoffeeScript's come up in a big way. And it's enabled people that weren't building JavaScript applications to build JavaScript applications. And in the end, what we want is we want people to build JavaScript applications. And the way that happens to me is not as important as actually getting the applications built. Because I hate to play around with what's my opinion on what someone should be doing. I feel like as long as we're building a great application... You're enabling developers. We enable developers. And our responsibility is to support them and what the decisions they make along the way. And we can help guide them. And we can help guide them by giving best practices. But it's hard to say that, you know, I'm going to be a draconian and make you do it this way or that way. Well, I'm going to steal your line. JavaScript is the assembler for the browser because, Juan, it's a great quote. Two conjures up images of core dumps and stacks, you know, hexadecimal reviews in the old days when I was a kid. But in all seriousness, to kind of confirm some of the things that we've always talked about on SiliconANGLE is that this is where I brought up the jQuery JavaScript baggage, kind of a question in a clever way. But because it's the problems that we have with JavaScript in jQuery are small compared to what's happening. And this systems approach, the world is becoming more of an operating system, right? So you bring a assembler in, you say, okay, that's just my assembler for my IO. And so as developers look at this, one of the things we're trying to tease out is, if it's a systems architecture, you got to think of it like a systems, not just as a UI guy, you know what I'm saying? So you're blending two worlds together. Right, and that's problematic for some people to get a handle on, but I think in the end, it makes everyone better developers and better technologists even. It gets us on the same page of understanding how things work and how technology works as a whole. Charlie Key, co-founder, CEO, modularist.io. Check him out, hot start up here at the Fluent Conference. This is the cube where we unpack it, we go deep, and we try to talk about some of the core issues. You nailed it. Great future head for JavaScript and Node and IO. It's just really amazing time. Thanks for coming on the cube. We're here live at the Stratoconference, the Fluent Conference. We'll do the Stratoconference coming up soon. Velocity first, bunch of other ones. This is SiliconANGLE's Cube. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break.