Node.js News

Microsoft proposes bringing TypeScript-like type syntax to JavaScript

(Wed Mar 09 2022 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)) It's not every day you see TypeScript as a trending topic on Twitter. But, a proposal by Microsoft to bring type syntax to JavaScript is certainly a big deal worthy of being a Twitter trending topic. Types coming to JavaScript?

Express enters Beta 1, proving the project is still alive

(Thu Feb 17 2022 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)) Express is the most popular web application framework for Node.js, even while its development has seemingly stagnated for years. Work on the Express repository is very slow, and the Express 5.x release has been promised for years; for example 5.alpha.1 was released in November 2014. But if you look under the covers, there is significant work happening in Express sub-projects.

Github buys npm: Might cause more angst about npm as de-facto package manager for Node.js?

(Mon Mar 16 2020 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)) From the beginning of Node.js, npm has been a faithful companion providing useful package management service to the Node.js community. Node.js would not have risen so high without a good package manager, and npm served that role. By rights we should celebrate that Github is buying npm since a big question mark about npm has its level of funding. But - it raises a big question mark about the continued independence of the npm registry once it falls into the clutches of a big corporation (Microsoft owns Github).

Bootstrap v5 will drop requirement for jQuery, drop IE10 and maybe drop IE11 support

(Wed Mar 11 2020 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)) The Bootstrap is working on the Bootstrap v5 release, and the team recently committed changes to drop support for at least IE10 (and possibly IE11). Judging by pull requests, their plan to drop the requirement to use jQuery has been a long time coming. On the one hand it is heart-warming to see Internet Explorer finally be dropped from support, and on the other hand we recognize the necessity of letting go of tools that have outlived their usefulness. Finally we'll note that the predicted release date for Bootstrap v5 is "late spring 2020".

A popular Node.js package, request, has been deprecated

(Thu Feb 13 2020 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)) What do we do when a venerated elder is supplanted by young whipper-snappers? Node.js is barely 10+ years old, and the availability of async/await and other JavaScript features means older packages must either adapt or be replaced. The community around the request package chose the latter, to let Request become deprecated, and to officially recommend folks to use other packages.

The rumors of Express.js's death are greatly exagerrated

(Wed Jun 26 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Wandering across a question on Quora (Is Express.js dying? What are the alternatives?) had me stop and take a look at the facts. I'd noticed a few months ago that contributions to the main Express repository had dried up, and therefore I was worried the Express project was dying from neglect. So let's talk about this, because it is important to clear up the air.

Regarding the recent security vulnerability in event-stream and other npm packages

(Tue Jun 18 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Recently security vulnerabilities were discovered in the event-stream package, and at least one other. Malicious code was added to specific packages in a way that could be done much more broadly. While the specific vulnerability was tightly focused on one specific target and did not affect most of us, the problem could have been extremely wide-spread. As a result we, the Node.js community, need to rethink how packages are managed.

Node.js 10.x released - What's NEW?

(Tue Apr 24 2018 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time))

After a year of development Node.js 10 has been released. It represents a huge step forward because of some high profile features and fixes. In October Node.js 10 will become the active Long Term Support branch, with 11.x becoming the new experimental branch. Let's take a look at what's been included.

Node.js Web Development, 4th edition, coming soon

(Sun Feb 25 2018 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time))

With the rapid advances in the Node.js platform, Packt Publishing (the publishers of Node.js Web Development) and I both felt a new edition was required. The 3rd edition published in mid-2016 updated the text to support Promises and some advanced techniques like deployment using Docker. Since then, async functions have emerged on the scene, and with Node.js 10.x we'll have ES6 modules available. I just submitted the first draft of all 12 chapters to the editors, meaning that the book is about a month from being finished.

npm version 5 has major usability bug with installing packages locally

(Tue Nov 28 2017 00:00:00 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time))

With npm version 5 we gained a lot of welcome new features and performance improvements. I've been happily using npm@5 for several months, but recently discovered a major problem that dramatically affects my workflow. When I'm updating a package, I want to test that package locally WITHOUT pushing changes to the Git repository. To do so, I found it best to install that package into another project to test/run the code. This worked great with npm versions prior to npm@5, but now I have two major problems. First, npm modifies the package.json to insert a "file:" dependency, overwriting the existing dependency, and second it makes a symlink to the package rather than doing a proper installation.

Node.js toolkit for mobile iOS and Android devices announced by Janea Systems

(Wed Oct 25 2017 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time))

Node.js is no longer limited to server-side application development. The Electron platform, popularized through the Atom editor, is an excellent way to develop desktop applications. Now it's possible to target mobile devices running either iOS or Android using a Node.js implementation. Janea Systems is offering a "library" for both iOS and Android systems allowing an app to host a full Node.js execution environment, and offering UI implementation either with Cordova or React Native.