I agree this is just part of the software iteration game. This has been Microsoft's modus operandi since they started. Microsoft still is with getting people to move to Azure/mobile, the cycling is just happening further up the stack.
Some of the iterations are good, some are just for control, mostly though it is to keep developers locked in and chasing rather than innovating. Software has to change and iterate though, but too slow or too fast can be harmful or the worthiness of iterations varies when platforms change.
On the topic of Node.js and Express though I think it is production solid and it is very fast (faster than php, ruby, python). I love it and I think here Netflix developers are at fault for not testing something a bit outside of the express default usage that is tested thoroughly. Their solution of changing to Restify so quick on a problem probably tells you how they got into this problem even if Restify is indeed better for this purpose. With any new change comes research/testing/possible problems open source or closed.
In the end this is why microframeworks, which both of the node frameworks are, do win out as they are easier to inspect and live on after the hype (monolithic frameworks not so much).
Some of the iterations are good, some are just for control, mostly though it is to keep developers locked in and chasing rather than innovating. Software has to change and iterate though, but too slow or too fast can be harmful or the worthiness of iterations varies when platforms change.
On the topic of Node.js and Express though I think it is production solid and it is very fast (faster than php, ruby, python). I love it and I think here Netflix developers are at fault for not testing something a bit outside of the express default usage that is tested thoroughly. Their solution of changing to Restify so quick on a problem probably tells you how they got into this problem even if Restify is indeed better for this purpose. With any new change comes research/testing/possible problems open source or closed.
In the end this is why microframeworks, which both of the node frameworks are, do win out as they are easier to inspect and live on after the hype (monolithic frameworks not so much).