9 ms·

Node.js v0.6.0 is released

198 points by jasondavies 15y ago

Ecio78 15y ago
uhm, according to their benchmark io.js write performance dropped from 21mb/s to 17mb/s in linux but rose from 12mb/s to 33mb/s in windows. So it seems that windows node implementation is now twice faster (for I/O) than linux one..are they only focusing on windows platform?
- bnoordhuis 15y ago
  That's a regression we'll probably have fixed in 0.6.1. Note that I/O read performance is up 35%, from 19.7 mb/s in 0.4 to 26.6 mb/s in 0.6.
  - chbrown 15y ago
    Is there a description of your benchmark machines / benchmark process anywhere? Keep up the great work, btw! I'm pretty excited to move up to Node 0.6 (probably-statistically-insignificant regression on IO-write regardless)!
  - mjs 15y ago
    Is there a ticket to follow to track this regression?
  - newman314 15y ago
    Any numbers for node on ARM? I was told that recently v8 releases have had significant performance regressions for ARM devices by a JS dev at a meetup.
    - mraleph 15y ago
      Can you give more information about this? If you know that JS dev personally please ask him to file the bug (http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/entry http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/entry) or send any information he has about regressions to v8-users mailing list. I don't think there were any bugs opened recently about perf regressions on ARM devices. Thanks.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
lemonad 15y ago
I found it a bit odd that writes for linux went down from 22MB/s to 17MB/s when Windows writes went way up from 13MB/s to 34MB/s. This at the same time as read performance went up to 27MB/s for both systems. Edit: Seems like it's a regression that will likely be fixed for 0.6.1.
Swizec 15y ago
Direct link to a list of changes you have to make to your codebases: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.4-and-v0.6 https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.4... Question: Since this doesn't look that complex, is anyone working on an automagical translator from 0.4 to 0.6 that people could use?
- joelhaasnoot 15y ago
  I think lots of the pain is going to be in the vast collection of third party (npm) modules that need to be updated. Will take a bit before all module authors are up to date.
  - DevX101 15y ago
    It'd be nice to have a list of modules affected by the change. I probably won't update until I know what it'll do to my existing system.
elii 15y ago
Don't use it if you rely on npm. It doesn't work yet.
- Kudos 15y ago
  Or just install npm manually. Clone it, edit one line to bypass a check, `make install`. Remember, if it's 0.5.x compatible, it's probably 0.6.0 compatible.
khookie 15y ago
I hope it's well optimized for fibonacci algorithms now.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ftwinnovations 15y ago
  Not to worry! Until we can get the desperately needed native Fibonacci support (lest the haters hate), there is always node-fib: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3067403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3067403
moomin 15y ago
Next for windows developers is trying to get npm to work. The sheer popularity of unix tooling in the build process means that using node libraries is likely to remain a challenge.
- jinushaun 15y ago
  While it's true that a lot of Node libraries assume *nix and make system calls, a surprising number of libraries are written in pure Node. Just clone the library from GitHub and put it in the node_modules directory and you're good to go for a number of popular libraries. I've played around with Node in Windows and Node without NPM is seriously gimped.
  - aquarius070287 15y ago
    Well, ryppi.py is a python script which works like npm. Once you are done with it you can install any of the libraries by using the following command. python ryppi.py install socket.io express
grannyg00se 15y ago
"Native Windows support using I/O Completion Ports for sockets." "Integrated load balancing over multiple processes." These two improvements are just the nudge I needed to start tinkering with Node. I've been following along and reading about node almost daily but native windows support and integrated focus on multiple processes make a big difference to me. I can no longer sit on the sidelines. Thanks for picking me up and shoving me onto the field!
- ebiester 15y ago
  While I agree what windows support is nice, I have found running a virtual machine running Linux much easier even when there is official Win support. It's no different running an SSH terminal to a local system than a remote one, after all.
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    That is exactly what I was considering for my home use. But unfortunately many businesses will deal only with windows servers, vm or not. This brings node one step closer into the realm of plausible platform for those cases.
    - jebblue 15y ago
      Can you provide a couple of examples?
dmmalam 15y ago
Would be nice to see a need a list of modules that are ready for 0.6. I rekon our moderately complex app we will be on 0.4.x for a while
markbao 15y ago
Am I the only one that thinks that Windows support was not really worth the time? Sure, you get to support a huge chunk of the OS market, but what are the real implications of Node running natively on Windows?
- rmgraham 15y ago
  I believe the extensive work on Windows support was from a Microsoft/Joyent collaboration.. as in the answer to your question may be measured in $$$. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but it would explain the seemingly unusual choice.
- artsrc 15y ago
  I think your argument is valid, but that it will take some serious cultural change at Microsoft to accept. When Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange and Sharepoint run on on Linux we will know that has change happened.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  Microsoft funded the work. My guess is since they're pushing for JS client-side apps now with WinRT; they funded node on Windows so that JS developers can run their server-side code on Windows instead of being tempted to fire up a *nix server instead. (AFAIK, MS doesn't have any server-side JS tooling similar to node at the moment. Very good chance that I'm wrong, though.)
  - hammerdr 15y ago
    Microsoft has JScript.NET (and has for a while now). http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974588.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974588.aspx I haven't seen it used anywhere as a server side application, though.
    - duncans 15y ago
      JScript.NET was dropped for .NET 4.0; it has always been a bit of a curiosity though. I think it was there because "classic" ASP had support for doing server-side scripting in JScript, so somebody thought ASP.NET needed to support it also. Thankfully, there are a few alternative JavaScript implementations on .NET such as IronJS.
firefoxman1 15y ago
Wow the balancing through clusters looks awesome! With this addition, does anyone know if you need to start node with --balance anymore?
siculars 15y ago
Node Cluster? http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/cluster.html Is it me or does this look like the early makings of an erlangish otp, eh?
disordinary 15y ago
Wouldn't run node on windows in production, but it makes it a heck of alot easier for dev work.

198 points by jasondavies 15y ago

uhm, according to their benchmark io.js write performance dropped from 21mb/s to 17mb/s in linux but rose from 12mb/s to 33mb/s in windows. So it seems that windows node implementation is now twice faster (for I/O) than linux one..are they only focusing on windows platform?

bnoordhuis 15y ago
That's a regression we'll probably have fixed in 0.6.1. Note that I/O read performance is up 35%, from 19.7 mb/s in 0.4 to 26.6 mb/s in 0.6.
- chbrown 15y ago
  Is there a description of your benchmark machines / benchmark process anywhere? Keep up the great work, btw! I'm pretty excited to move up to Node 0.6 (probably-statistically-insignificant regression on IO-write regardless)!
- mjs 15y ago
  Is there a ticket to follow to track this regression?
- newman314 15y ago
  Any numbers for node on ARM? I was told that recently v8 releases have had significant performance regressions for ARM devices by a JS dev at a meetup.
  - mraleph 15y ago
    Can you give more information about this? If you know that JS dev personally please ask him to file the bug (http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/entry http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/entry) or send any information he has about regressions to v8-users mailing list. I don't think there were any bugs opened recently about perf regressions on ARM devices. Thanks.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]

lemonad 15y ago

I found it a bit odd that writes for linux went down from 22MB/s to 17MB/s when Windows writes went way up from 13MB/s to 34MB/s. This at the same time as read performance went up to 27MB/s for both systems. Edit: Seems like it's a regression that will likely be fixed for 0.6.1.

Swizec 15y ago

Direct link to a list of changes you have to make to your codebases: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.4-and-v0.6 https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.4... Question: Since this doesn't look that complex, is anyone working on an automagical translator from 0.4 to 0.6 that people could use?

joelhaasnoot 15y ago
I think lots of the pain is going to be in the vast collection of third party (npm) modules that need to be updated. Will take a bit before all module authors are up to date.
- DevX101 15y ago
  It'd be nice to have a list of modules affected by the change. I probably won't update until I know what it'll do to my existing system.

elii 15y ago

Don't use it if you rely on npm. It doesn't work yet.

Kudos 15y ago
Or just install npm manually. Clone it, edit one line to bypass a check, `make install`. Remember, if it's 0.5.x compatible, it's probably 0.6.0 compatible.

khookie 15y ago

I hope it's well optimized for fibonacci algorithms now.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ftwinnovations 15y ago
Not to worry! Until we can get the desperately needed native Fibonacci support (lest the haters hate), there is always node-fib: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3067403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3067403

moomin 15y ago

Next for windows developers is trying to get npm to work. The sheer popularity of unix tooling in the build process means that using node libraries is likely to remain a challenge.

jinushaun 15y ago
While it's true that a lot of Node libraries assume *nix and make system calls, a surprising number of libraries are written in pure Node. Just clone the library from GitHub and put it in the node_modules directory and you're good to go for a number of popular libraries. I've played around with Node in Windows and Node without NPM is seriously gimped.
- aquarius070287 15y ago
  Well, ryppi.py is a python script which works like npm. Once you are done with it you can install any of the libraries by using the following command. python ryppi.py install socket.io express

grannyg00se 15y ago

"Native Windows support using I/O Completion Ports for sockets." "Integrated load balancing over multiple processes." These two improvements are just the nudge I needed to start tinkering with Node. I've been following along and reading about node almost daily but native windows support and integrated focus on multiple processes make a big difference to me. I can no longer sit on the sidelines. Thanks for picking me up and shoving me onto the field!

ebiester 15y ago
While I agree what windows support is nice, I have found running a virtual machine running Linux much easier even when there is official Win support. It's no different running an SSH terminal to a local system than a remote one, after all.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  That is exactly what I was considering for my home use. But unfortunately many businesses will deal only with windows servers, vm or not. This brings node one step closer into the realm of plausible platform for those cases.
  - jebblue 15y ago
    Can you provide a couple of examples?

dmmalam 15y ago

Would be nice to see a need a list of modules that are ready for 0.6. I rekon our moderately complex app we will be on 0.4.x for a while

markbao 15y ago

Am I the only one that thinks that Windows support was not really worth the time? Sure, you get to support a huge chunk of the OS market, but what are the real implications of Node running natively on Windows?

rmgraham 15y ago
I believe the extensive work on Windows support was from a Microsoft/Joyent collaboration.. as in the answer to your question may be measured in $$$. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but it would explain the seemingly unusual choice.
artsrc 15y ago
I think your argument is valid, but that it will take some serious cultural change at Microsoft to accept. When Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange and Sharepoint run on on Linux we will know that has change happened.
ConstantineXVI 15y ago
Microsoft funded the work. My guess is since they're pushing for JS client-side apps now with WinRT; they funded node on Windows so that JS developers can run their server-side code on Windows instead of being tempted to fire up a *nix server instead. (AFAIK, MS doesn't have any server-side JS tooling similar to node at the moment. Very good chance that I'm wrong, though.)
- hammerdr 15y ago
  Microsoft has JScript.NET (and has for a while now). http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974588.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974588.aspx I haven't seen it used anywhere as a server side application, though.
  - duncans 15y ago
    JScript.NET was dropped for .NET 4.0; it has always been a bit of a curiosity though. I think it was there because "classic" ASP had support for doing server-side scripting in JScript, so somebody thought ASP.NET needed to support it also. Thankfully, there are a few alternative JavaScript implementations on .NET such as IronJS.

firefoxman1 15y ago

Wow the balancing through clusters looks awesome! With this addition, does anyone know if you need to start node with --balance anymore?

siculars 15y ago

Node Cluster? http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/cluster.html Is it me or does this look like the early makings of an erlangish otp, eh?

disordinary 15y ago

Wouldn't run node on windows in production, but it makes it a heck of alot easier for dev work.