title: Use Node.js and ExtJS to build an enterprise-grade grid-based single page application?
body: <p>While the title suggests I wanted to cram as many buzzwords into the question as possible, I am actually serious ;)</p>
  
  <p>I am exploring my options for building an enterprise application that will have plenty of grids and needs to be as snappy as a desktop app. While operational transformation is going to be a big issue (or rather concurrent edits, with OT a possible approach to solving related problems), the app is unlikely to ever have a large number of concurrent users (starting with 50, probably never more than a couple of hundred).</p>
  
  <p>While SmartGWT seems to solve many of the problems we are facing, the team building the app is very small (probably two devs and a technical program manager). Node.js seems attractive because both devs could work on backend and frontend.</p>
  
  <p>In this context I have a couple of questions:</p>
  
  <p>Is Node.js suitable for this kind of app? It would be very interesting to hear from people and their experiences with Node.js and this kind of app.</p>
  
  <p>Has anyone used it together with ExtJS/SmartGWT? What were your experiences with how these work together with Node?</p>
  
  <p>I am pretty sure it will be impossible to find experienced Node.js devs while finding Java experts is a comparably trivial exercise. Experience with which other languages make the transition to Node.js easy?</p>
  
  <p>I know this is a rather broad question, please bear with me.</p>