Citing a desire to work on research projects after three years of focused work, Node.js creator and project leader Ryan Dahl sent out a message today that he will be “ceding
my position as gatekeeper to Isaac Schlueter”. He stated:

I am still an employee at Joyent and will advise from the sidelines but I won’t be involved in the day-to-day bug fixes. Isaac has final say over what makes it into the releases. Appeals for new features, changes, and bug fixes should now be directed at him.

I’ve been a huge fan of Node.js and if you look at the tag cloud in the right sidebar you’ll see that “Node.js” stands out with the largest lettering and denoting the most posts written here. My post on “Node.js, Doctor’s Offices and Fast Food Restaurants – Understanding Event-driven Programming” remains one of the most visited posts on this blog. And I continue to routinely find new and interesting ways to work with node.js. I also learned a great bit from the various videos of Ryan’s presentations (such as this presentation).

Kudos to Ryan for creating Node.js and then taking it as far as he has. I can completely understand how after three years of rather intense work he wants and needs to pursue a different path. His departure is also a huge statement about the power of the Node.js community – and also of Joyent as a sponsor and employer of so many key Node.js developers – to continue the development of the language without the creator at the helm.

As just a random developer out there using Node.js, I certainly thank Ryan for all he’s done and wish him all the best in his new role!

UPDATE: Jolie O’Dell over at VentureBeat also has a nice post out about Ryan Dahl’s stepping down.