> Two hours of work after 4 years sounds ... perfectly acceptable?

Does it, though? Node wasn't exactly new 4 years ago, and plenty of other languages would offer a better experience for even older code -- Java, C, C++ to name a few.

> Java

50% of Java developers are still regularly working in Java 8 [0], which is the same solution that the author could have arrived at immediately—when starting up an old project after 4 years, use the same version you ran last time, don't try to update before you even have the thing running.

> C, C++

Not my experience, but maybe it depends on your operating system and distro? In my experience sorting through the C libs and versions that you need to install on your system to build a new project can easily take a few hours.

[0] https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2023/java/

Define "better experience."

1.5 hours to get running again?

1?

In exchange for needing to run C? How many hours would it take to build a Node app equivalent in C, I wonder.