You’re ignoring the fact that for many projects it does work.
It only needs to be perfect if you want to run 100% Node.js software unaltered. While that may be a lofty goal, it’s also an infeasible one.
That doesn’t mean imperfect support is futile though. By your logic, Bun has no right to exist because it only supports Node.js APIs and doesn’t have noteworthy APIs of its own, and they’re not perfect either. Yet they seem to be at least as successful as Deno is.
Or for an example in a different domain: Your argument would state that a project like WINE shouldn’t exist because it doesn’t have perfect compatibility with Windows, and it disincentivizes development of Linux games. Yet it is largely thanks to WINE that Valve has been able to make the Steam Deck and that Linux gaming is finally taking off.
I think what your argument fails to take into account is that you need a significant amount of users to make any impact on the market. And many users have legacy requirements that they can’t throw out overnight, so you have to support those legacy environments. And even with imperfect legacy support you can support your users, especially if the users are willing to make a few changes here or there. But if you have no legacy support, you also get no users except those that have niche greenfield requirements.
So instead of trying to replace NodeJS or offering an upgrade path for existing Node projects, incentivize formation of ecosystem around Deno
They are incentivizing their own ecosystem. That’s what Jsr.io is all about. But the world isn’t black and white. They can do more than one thing.
Yes, it has a few APIs of its own. I merely think they are negligible in this discussion because they only provide a minimal superset over Node.js’s own APIs and are also very minimal compared to what Deno provides.
I’ve updated my post to mention “noteworthy” APIs.