>>I dont do much in the javascript and related world - can someone explain what in particular about this project has generated such interest?
The majority of the interest lies in the fact that Ryan Dahl[1] was the original creator of Node.JS[2], which is currently a very popular Javascript runtime and web backend.
Dahl released the initial version of Node.JS in 2009[3]. After a decade of experience working on Node.JS and growing the community, Dahl decided to create an alternative Javascript (and Typescript) runtime in mid/late 2018 called Deno which is now v1.0.
> After a decade of experience working on Node.JS and growing the community, Dahl decided to create an alternative Javascript (and Typescript) runtime in mid/late 2018 called Deno which is now v1.0.
Just to nit-pick: Ryan Dahl had stepped away from node and the surrounding ecosystem in 2012. So for the vast majority of node's lifetime, he hasn't really been involved. Node in 2012 was a very different project.
(That doesn't take away from his observations or from the things that deno does differently. Just trying to reduce confusion.)
The majority of the interest lies in the fact that Ryan Dahl[1] was the original creator of Node.JS[2], which is currently a very popular Javascript runtime and web backend.
Dahl released the initial version of Node.JS in 2009[3]. After a decade of experience working on Node.JS and growing the community, Dahl decided to create an alternative Javascript (and Typescript) runtime in mid/late 2018 called Deno which is now v1.0.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Dahl
[2] https://nodejs.org/en/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js