7 ms·

Node.js v0.8.0 [stable] is out

286 points by pooriaazimi 14y ago

pooriaazimi 14y ago
:-D I actually set an alarm this afternoon to submit v0.8.0 as soon as it comes out, if you can possibly believe it (I still can't believe I've done such a low, degenerate thing and am a little ashamed of myself)! But I'm incredibly happy about this release, specially about the 'new' cluster API[1] that has made my life a whole lot easier! So apologies for being a karma whore, but I was so glad I couldn't resist, if you know what I mean... [1]: http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.8.0/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.8.0/api/cluster.html
- IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
  I can't believe you managed to get this submitted to HN before I did. That's what I get for posting it to twitter before coming here ;D Since I knew the URL, I could have totally cheated and done it before even uploading the blog post.
  - dubcanada 14y ago
    You got to give him props, he set an alarm to post it lol.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      Isaac said it would be out in 15:00 UTC, and it was out in 15:00 UTC... I was studying for my exam, my alarm went off and bam! There's the blog post - It was amazing.
  - oscardelben 14y ago
    Was there a prize for the first person that posted this?
    - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
      what izs has called "Internet Points"
      - technomancy 14y ago
        Welcome to HN, the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      Of course not. Just a few seconds of joy, that our favorite platform has reached another milestone... I posted the above comment to say I was really happy and all (and I wasn't trying to be an ass) - I wish people would stop upvoting that stupid, non-constructive comment (for some reason, it has 10 upvotes).
    - chc 14y ago
      You're probably missing some necessary context here: Isaac is the maintainer of Node.js. So the funny thing is that pooriaazimi was so excited to post this to Hacker News that he beat the project's own maintainer to the punch.
  - babuskov 14y ago
    Now, quickly release 0.8.1 and make sure you beat everyone ;) Joke aside, thanks for the great new release. I'm running 0.6 in production sometimes with 3000+ connected users and will soon need to scale. Being able to do so just by upgrading to 0.8 will make my life easier... until many more users come, of course.
- quarterto 14y ago
  Wrt the Cluster module, the autoFork method is mentioned a couple of times in the code examples, but isn't documented. Does it actually exist?
  - IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
    Yeah, that looks like a bug in the docs. It does not actually exist. https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/3532 https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/3532
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mcantelon 14y ago
  Anyone have a TLDR on what new functionality has been added to cluster? I skimmed the API and the changes didn't jump out.
  - ya3r 14y ago
    Read the blog post. It has a TLDR
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    If you mean changes between 0.7.15+ and 0.8.0, nothing really significant. But if you mean changes between 0.6.x and 0.8.0, well, almost everything has changed! Sorry for the non-answer... But take a look at https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.6-and-v0.8 https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.6... and https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nodejs-dev https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nodejs-dev for change log (in 0.7 branch).
    - mcantelon 14y ago
      Ah, thanks!
mjackson 14y ago
This looks incredible. Congrats to node core on this milestone! I really appreciate how laser-focused you guys are on code consistency across the board. Looking forward to trying out the cluster and domain modules in strata!
- fibertbh 14y ago
  The domain module looks fantastic: http://nodejs.org/api/domain.html http://nodejs.org/api/domain.html "Domains provide a way to handle multiple different IO operations as a single group. If any of the event emitters or callbacks registered to a domain emit an error event, or throw an error, then the domain object will be notified, rather than losing the context of the error in the process.on('uncaughtException') handler, or causing the program to exit with an error code." This will be great for things like request handlers, initialization code and other "loose" blocks of code where you don't really care about success but you do care about errors not propogating.
  - IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
    Thanks! It is marked experimental, and we really do mean that. The API won't change in 0.8, but it probably will change somewhat in the next stable release. Please try it out and let us know what you think, especially in what ways it is lacking, how it actually helps or hurts in real apps, etc.
  - dtjohnnymonkey 14y ago
    I've been reading back and forth between this post and the docs and I'm still not really getting it. Is this just a way of registering a single callback to respond to error events that could be emitted by different operations? What are some examples when this would be better than handling error events individually? Is it sort of like a try/catch for error events?
    - IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
      > Is it sort of like a try/catch for error events? Yes, but it's also sort of like a try/catch for thrown errors. d = domain.create() d.on('error', function(e) { console.error('an error: ', e) }); d.run(function() { throw new Error("whoops") }) would console.log, rather than crashing the program. When an EventEmitter is bound to a domain, their error events and any errors thrown while emitting an event on them will be handled by the domain object that they're bound to.
radagaisus 14y ago
Make sure you at least got this points correct when trying to upgrade: 1. require('sys') throws, use require('util') now. The "sys" module was deprecated in node v0.4. 2.cluster.fork() no longer return a child_process.fork() object use cluster.fork().process to get the object. 3.the 'death' event on the cluster object is renamed to 'exit'
jeremiep 14y ago
This means contracts.coffee (http://disnetdev.com/contracts.coffee/ http://disnetdev.com/contracts.coffee/) can finally be used on the stable version of node.js!
AUmrysh 14y ago
Coincidentally, today is the day that I started looking into learning node. Anyone know some good guides which don't use deprecated code?
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  It's been a long since I watched "Introduction to Node.js with Ryan Dahl"[1], but although I think it was circa v0.4.0, it's not really outdated. It's a short talk, but it talks a little about Node's philosophy and I highly recommend watching it. I haven't watched Pedro Teixeira's tutorials[2], but many recommend it. But I personally think Manuel Kiessling's online book[3] is the best. It really teaches you to think asynchronously. I took a quick look and I don't think any of the modules he's used have had a significant change. Be sure to check it out. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I [2]: http://nodetuts.com http://nodetuts.com [3]: http://www.nodebeginner.org http://www.nodebeginner.org
  - Justen 14y ago
    I just started teaching myself node a couple days ago and just finished with Manuel Kiessling's online book yesterday. It really is a great tutorial and helped me a lot. Thanks for the other links, I'm going to check out nodetuts.com later today.
- DanielN 14y ago
  Shameless self plug: http://danielnill.com/blog/nodejs-tutorial-with-socketio/ http://danielnill.com/blog/nodejs-tutorial-with-socketio/ Not a full tutorial, but hopefully a decent intro for those looking to learn the ropes.(I would love to hear feedback good or bad)
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Oh, and of course, if you don't mind paying for a video tutorial, the latest Peepcode screencasts look promising: https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-i https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-i https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-ii https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-ii (Don't purchase the old ones. They're desperately outdated. These two were published recently and use the latest APIs.)
unit_testing 14y ago
Congrats on the release! I'd love to take this opportunity to dive into Node, but I have yet to stumble accross an effective way of organizing medium to large Node projects. What tools do you guys/gals use?
- Ygor 14y ago
  One thing to note is that there is no standard library. Most of your code will be dealing with modules. The most important thing is to get those dependencies right. Node comes with node package manager (npm), which is a great tool for the job. Still, be aware that you might be dealing with a lot of moving parts. Any tool that helps you with this should be worth checking out. You should also check out modules like step or async, to make your chained callbacks look nicer. This way you will avoid long code pyramids. Use a tool such as JSHint or similar, to detect errors and potential problems in JavaScript code. Try to integrate it with your editor or your complete development environment. Regarding editors or an IDE, well, you basically have a standard pick here. Although there is one interesting and somewhat new player you might want to check out - Cloud9 IDE, an online development environment for js and Node (amongst others). Since the code is available on github you can also deploy it on your own machines if the hosted options don't suit you.
- tlack 14y ago
  Late response, apologies.. Node is still young, and for its primary use case (multiuser/messaging-oriented apps) it seems like the actual LoC stays pretty low. However, here are some things I've picked up in my studies that seemed to make sense to me as an Express user. Keep in mind I'm still a relative nodenoob, so take this with a grain of salt.. - Keep the actual 'route code' (i.e., code that handles your end points) in a folder, named by the function: i.e., routes/login.js - The overall route map (i.e., app.get()) lives in the main app.js file or routes/index.js - Use underscore.js where possible; this raises the cognitive level of your code and its become a 'standard part' of Javascript to some degree. Unfortunately the Node repl treats _ as a special value, so you can't really test with it there. Kinda sucks.. - Use config.js to contain database settings, default port, middleware settings, etc. - Develop the more complicated parts of your code in libs/. Think of them as open source components; keep them generic and disconnected from your app itself. This increases reusability (obviously) and testability. I think it creates better code overall. Some people even npm the core "hard parts" of their code! This is a really interesting and freeing strategy.
tg3 14y ago
Any ideas how long it usually takes Heroku to add a new release of Node?
- willlll 14y ago
  You can use any version at any time: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions
  - exogen 14y ago
    Not quite, I think? That page suggests that you can only use versions in this manifest: http://heroku-buildpack-nodejs.s3.amazonaws.com/manifest.nodejs http://heroku-buildpack-nodejs.s3.amazonaws.com/manifest.nod... ...which doesn't list 0.8.
    - randometc 14y ago
      The node.js buildpack has good instructions for how to upgrade it yourself if needed: https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs (and the buildpack docs are now public since Heroku's Cedar stack became the official default)
      - tg3 14y ago
        I meant when will they update it so that you can use the new version of Node without hacking the buildpack. >To change the vendored binaries for Node.js, NPM, and SCons, use the helper scripts in the support/ subdirectory. You'll need an S3-enabled AWS account and a bucket to store your binaries in. I don't want to mess with that, I'd rather wait for Heroku to update so I can change one line in my package.json.
        aashay 14y ago
        I'm beginning to wonder if Heroku is going to bother with this any time soon. The default version is _still_ 0.4.7 [1] and personally I'm starting to feel the pressure to update, especially considering recent performance improvements. [1] https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions
louischatriot 14y ago
Congrats on the release, it looks great!
mgd8 14y ago
The big difference is the switch from node-waf to node-gyp for native modules.
ruethewhirled 14y ago
Anyone noticed increased CPU usage?
rapind 14y ago
Gotta love that the homebrew recipe is already up. brew update brew upgrade node
- dstroot 14y ago
  Why does brew NOT include NPM? I used the mac installation package instead.
  - jherdman 14y ago
    Homebrew doesn't handle software that updates itself. It's an opinionated piece of software. UPDATE: More on this here http://blog.izs.me/post/3295261330/on-npm-and-homebrew http://blog.izs.me/post/3295261330/on-npm-and-homebrew
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
dbau 14y ago
Yay! This looks great. I'm particularly excited about v0.9x as the current SSL performance is still a massive issue when it comes to actually running apps in production (it's SUPER SLOW). It seems that optimising this will be a core focus moving forward: SSL performance leaves much to be desired at the moment. Node's interface with OpenSSL is somewhat naive and leaves a lot of potential optimization on the table.
secoif 14y ago
While the benchmarks look like there's an overall improvement, it's not instantly clear how much of an improvement they demonstrate. To more easily parse what the benchmarks are telling us, I calculated the percentage difference and the results appear really impressive. Some of the most notable improvements listed below (results rounded, possibly misleading, but nonetheless awesome). According to these benchmarks, 0.8 is approximately: * 43% faster at reading files. * 119% faster at reading 4096 byte buffers. * 117% faster at writing 16384 byte buffers. * 243% faster at http benchmark TYPE=bytes LENGTH=123456 * 506% faster at http benchmark TYPE=unicode LENGTH=55555 Be sure to note the actual figures though, as they are what really matter. https://github.com/timoxley/node/blob/ddee8bcda50c8377d135d68923ecac0a29f72173/doc/blog/release/node-v0.8.0.md https://github.com/timoxley/node/blob/ddee8bcda50c8377d135d6...
amix 14y ago
Does anybody know which optimization was added to V8 to improve the throughput by so much?
- mraleph 14y ago
  It is hard to say: that's 2642 worth of revisions in V8. String (unicode) benchmark throughput was definitely greatly affected by improvements in string handling (both internal operations and writing then out of V8 heap through the API; V8 also reintroduced string slices to avoid copying of characters for long substrings). Other notable things on the compiler front: V8 has switched to a new counting profiler from statistical one, and now makes slightly different optimization decisions. There were improvements in functions inlining (including inlining of constructors). There was some cleanup in invocation sequences for functions and we enabled type feedback for function calls through local variables on x64 (which opened the door to all optimizations that were dormant at such callsites: e.g. inlining or direct calls). Other notable things in the runtime: new GC has landed and was tweaked for quite some time. Unboxing of double arrays and tracking of smi-arrays (should not affect node.js though). I think the only way to see which changes in V8 resulted in throughput boosts is to get per-V8-revision measurements.
mytrile 14y ago
Yo Dawg, I've heard Node.js is blazing fast at "Hello, World" benchmarks - http://i50.tinypic.com/ibg8cp.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/ibg8cp.jpg "Aleph is a Clojure framework for asynchronous communication, built on top of Netty and Lamina."
obtu 14y ago
In the announcement: s/in favor of/in place of/, otherwise one can't parse which array implementation will be picked.
substack 14y ago
If you want to play with this new version but also have code running on older versions that hasn't been completely ported yet, I recommend using nave to manage your node versions. After you `npm install -g nave` you can just `nave install 0.8.0` to get node 0.8 then type `nave use 0.8.0` to start using it! https://github.com/isaacs/nave https://github.com/isaacs/nave
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Or 'nvm'[1], or 'n'[2]... All of them are bash-specific so if you're using 'fish' for example (what I really like to), you're out of luck and you must hack your own. [1]: https://github.com/creationix/nvm https://github.com/creationix/nvm [2]: https://github.com/visionmedia/n https://github.com/visionmedia/n
nfriedly 14y ago
Does anybody know the details on cluster.autoFork()? http://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html has it in a couple of examples, but not documented - is that supposed to be there?

286 points by pooriaazimi 14y ago

:-D I actually set an alarm this afternoon to submit v0.8.0 as soon as it comes out, if you can possibly believe it (I still can't believe I've done such a low, degenerate thing and am a little ashamed of myself)! But I'm incredibly happy about this release, specially about the 'new' cluster API[1] that has made my life a whole lot easier! So apologies for being a karma whore, but I was so glad I couldn't resist, if you know what I mean... [1]: http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.8.0/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.8.0/api/cluster.html

IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
I can't believe you managed to get this submitted to HN before I did. That's what I get for posting it to twitter before coming here ;D Since I knew the URL, I could have totally cheated and done it before even uploading the blog post.
- dubcanada 14y ago
  You got to give him props, he set an alarm to post it lol.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Isaac said it would be out in 15:00 UTC, and it was out in 15:00 UTC... I was studying for my exam, my alarm went off and bam! There's the blog post - It was amazing.
- oscardelben 14y ago
  Was there a prize for the first person that posted this?
  - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
    what izs has called "Internet Points"
    - technomancy 14y ago
      Welcome to HN, the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Of course not. Just a few seconds of joy, that our favorite platform has reached another milestone... I posted the above comment to say I was really happy and all (and I wasn't trying to be an ass) - I wish people would stop upvoting that stupid, non-constructive comment (for some reason, it has 10 upvotes).
  - chc 14y ago
    You're probably missing some necessary context here: Isaac is the maintainer of Node.js. So the funny thing is that pooriaazimi was so excited to post this to Hacker News that he beat the project's own maintainer to the punch.
- babuskov 14y ago
  Now, quickly release 0.8.1 and make sure you beat everyone ;) Joke aside, thanks for the great new release. I'm running 0.6 in production sometimes with 3000+ connected users and will soon need to scale. Being able to do so just by upgrading to 0.8 will make my life easier... until many more users come, of course.
quarterto 14y ago
Wrt the Cluster module, the autoFork method is mentioned a couple of times in the code examples, but isn't documented. Does it actually exist?
- IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
  Yeah, that looks like a bug in the docs. It does not actually exist. https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/3532 https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/3532
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mcantelon 14y ago
Anyone have a TLDR on what new functionality has been added to cluster? I skimmed the API and the changes didn't jump out.
- ya3r 14y ago
  Read the blog post. It has a TLDR
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  If you mean changes between 0.7.15+ and 0.8.0, nothing really significant. But if you mean changes between 0.6.x and 0.8.0, well, almost everything has changed! Sorry for the non-answer... But take a look at https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.6-and-v0.8 https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/API-changes-between-v0.6... and https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nodejs-dev https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nodejs-dev for change log (in 0.7 branch).
  - mcantelon 14y ago
    Ah, thanks!

mjackson 14y ago

This looks incredible. Congrats to node core on this milestone! I really appreciate how laser-focused you guys are on code consistency across the board. Looking forward to trying out the cluster and domain modules in strata!

fibertbh 14y ago
The domain module looks fantastic: http://nodejs.org/api/domain.html http://nodejs.org/api/domain.html "Domains provide a way to handle multiple different IO operations as a single group. If any of the event emitters or callbacks registered to a domain emit an error event, or throw an error, then the domain object will be notified, rather than losing the context of the error in the process.on('uncaughtException') handler, or causing the program to exit with an error code." This will be great for things like request handlers, initialization code and other "loose" blocks of code where you don't really care about success but you do care about errors not propogating.
- IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
  Thanks! It is marked experimental, and we really do mean that. The API won't change in 0.8, but it probably will change somewhat in the next stable release. Please try it out and let us know what you think, especially in what ways it is lacking, how it actually helps or hurts in real apps, etc.
- dtjohnnymonkey 14y ago
  I've been reading back and forth between this post and the docs and I'm still not really getting it. Is this just a way of registering a single callback to respond to error events that could be emitted by different operations? What are some examples when this would be better than handling error events individually? Is it sort of like a try/catch for error events?
  - IsaacSchlueter 14y ago
    > Is it sort of like a try/catch for error events? Yes, but it's also sort of like a try/catch for thrown errors. d = domain.create() d.on('error', function(e) { console.error('an error: ', e) }); d.run(function() { throw new Error("whoops") }) would console.log, rather than crashing the program. When an EventEmitter is bound to a domain, their error events and any errors thrown while emitting an event on them will be handled by the domain object that they're bound to.

radagaisus 14y ago

Make sure you at least got this points correct when trying to upgrade: 1. require('sys') throws, use require('util') now. The "sys" module was deprecated in node v0.4. 2.cluster.fork() no longer return a child_process.fork() object use cluster.fork().process to get the object. 3.the 'death' event on the cluster object is renamed to 'exit'

jeremiep 14y ago

This means contracts.coffee (http://disnetdev.com/contracts.coffee/ http://disnetdev.com/contracts.coffee/) can finally be used on the stable version of node.js!

AUmrysh 14y ago

Coincidentally, today is the day that I started looking into learning node. Anyone know some good guides which don't use deprecated code?

pooriaazimi 14y ago
It's been a long since I watched "Introduction to Node.js with Ryan Dahl"[1], but although I think it was circa v0.4.0, it's not really outdated. It's a short talk, but it talks a little about Node's philosophy and I highly recommend watching it. I haven't watched Pedro Teixeira's tutorials[2], but many recommend it. But I personally think Manuel Kiessling's online book[3] is the best. It really teaches you to think asynchronously. I took a quick look and I don't think any of the modules he's used have had a significant change. Be sure to check it out. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I [2]: http://nodetuts.com http://nodetuts.com [3]: http://www.nodebeginner.org http://www.nodebeginner.org
- Justen 14y ago
  I just started teaching myself node a couple days ago and just finished with Manuel Kiessling's online book yesterday. It really is a great tutorial and helped me a lot. Thanks for the other links, I'm going to check out nodetuts.com later today.
DanielN 14y ago
Shameless self plug: http://danielnill.com/blog/nodejs-tutorial-with-socketio/ http://danielnill.com/blog/nodejs-tutorial-with-socketio/ Not a full tutorial, but hopefully a decent intro for those looking to learn the ropes.(I would love to hear feedback good or bad)
pooriaazimi 14y ago
Oh, and of course, if you don't mind paying for a video tutorial, the latest Peepcode screencasts look promising: https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-i https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-i https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-ii https://peepcode.com/products/full-stack-nodejs-ii (Don't purchase the old ones. They're desperately outdated. These two were published recently and use the latest APIs.)

unit_testing 14y ago

Congrats on the release! I'd love to take this opportunity to dive into Node, but I have yet to stumble accross an effective way of organizing medium to large Node projects. What tools do you guys/gals use?

Ygor 14y ago
One thing to note is that there is no standard library. Most of your code will be dealing with modules. The most important thing is to get those dependencies right. Node comes with node package manager (npm), which is a great tool for the job. Still, be aware that you might be dealing with a lot of moving parts. Any tool that helps you with this should be worth checking out. You should also check out modules like step or async, to make your chained callbacks look nicer. This way you will avoid long code pyramids. Use a tool such as JSHint or similar, to detect errors and potential problems in JavaScript code. Try to integrate it with your editor or your complete development environment. Regarding editors or an IDE, well, you basically have a standard pick here. Although there is one interesting and somewhat new player you might want to check out - Cloud9 IDE, an online development environment for js and Node (amongst others). Since the code is available on github you can also deploy it on your own machines if the hosted options don't suit you.
tlack 14y ago
Late response, apologies.. Node is still young, and for its primary use case (multiuser/messaging-oriented apps) it seems like the actual LoC stays pretty low. However, here are some things I've picked up in my studies that seemed to make sense to me as an Express user. Keep in mind I'm still a relative nodenoob, so take this with a grain of salt.. - Keep the actual 'route code' (i.e., code that handles your end points) in a folder, named by the function: i.e., routes/login.js - The overall route map (i.e., app.get()) lives in the main app.js file or routes/index.js - Use underscore.js where possible; this raises the cognitive level of your code and its become a 'standard part' of Javascript to some degree. Unfortunately the Node repl treats _ as a special value, so you can't really test with it there. Kinda sucks.. - Use config.js to contain database settings, default port, middleware settings, etc. - Develop the more complicated parts of your code in libs/. Think of them as open source components; keep them generic and disconnected from your app itself. This increases reusability (obviously) and testability. I think it creates better code overall. Some people even npm the core "hard parts" of their code! This is a really interesting and freeing strategy.

tg3 14y ago

Any ideas how long it usually takes Heroku to add a new release of Node?

willlll 14y ago
You can use any version at any time: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions
- exogen 14y ago
  Not quite, I think? That page suggests that you can only use versions in this manifest: http://heroku-buildpack-nodejs.s3.amazonaws.com/manifest.nodejs http://heroku-buildpack-nodejs.s3.amazonaws.com/manifest.nod... ...which doesn't list 0.8.
  - randometc 14y ago
    The node.js buildpack has good instructions for how to upgrade it yourself if needed: https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs (and the buildpack docs are now public since Heroku's Cedar stack became the official default)
    - tg3 14y ago
      I meant when will they update it so that you can use the new version of Node without hacking the buildpack. >To change the vendored binaries for Node.js, NPM, and SCons, use the helper scripts in the support/ subdirectory. You'll need an S3-enabled AWS account and a bucket to store your binaries in. I don't want to mess with that, I'd rather wait for Heroku to update so I can change one line in my package.json.
      - aashay 14y ago
        I'm beginning to wonder if Heroku is going to bother with this any time soon. The default version is _still_ 0.4.7 [1] and personally I'm starting to feel the pressure to update, especially considering recent performance improvements. [1] https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions

louischatriot 14y ago

Congrats on the release, it looks great!

mgd8 14y ago

The big difference is the switch from node-waf to node-gyp for native modules.

ruethewhirled 14y ago

Anyone noticed increased CPU usage?

rapind 14y ago

Gotta love that the homebrew recipe is already up. brew update brew upgrade node

dstroot 14y ago
Why does brew NOT include NPM? I used the mac installation package instead.
- jherdman 14y ago
  Homebrew doesn't handle software that updates itself. It's an opinionated piece of software. UPDATE: More on this here http://blog.izs.me/post/3295261330/on-npm-and-homebrew http://blog.izs.me/post/3295261330/on-npm-and-homebrew
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

dbau 14y ago

Yay! This looks great. I'm particularly excited about v0.9x as the current SSL performance is still a massive issue when it comes to actually running apps in production (it's SUPER SLOW). It seems that optimising this will be a core focus moving forward: SSL performance leaves much to be desired at the moment. Node's interface with OpenSSL is somewhat naive and leaves a lot of potential optimization on the table.

secoif 14y ago

While the benchmarks look like there's an overall improvement, it's not instantly clear how much of an improvement they demonstrate. To more easily parse what the benchmarks are telling us, I calculated the percentage difference and the results appear really impressive. Some of the most notable improvements listed below (results rounded, possibly misleading, but nonetheless awesome). According to these benchmarks, 0.8 is approximately: * 43% faster at reading files. * 119% faster at reading 4096 byte buffers. * 117% faster at writing 16384 byte buffers. * 243% faster at http benchmark TYPE=bytes LENGTH=123456 * 506% faster at http benchmark TYPE=unicode LENGTH=55555 Be sure to note the actual figures though, as they are what really matter. https://github.com/timoxley/node/blob/ddee8bcda50c8377d135d68923ecac0a29f72173/doc/blog/release/node-v0.8.0.md https://github.com/timoxley/node/blob/ddee8bcda50c8377d135d6...

amix 14y ago

Does anybody know which optimization was added to V8 to improve the throughput by so much?

mraleph 14y ago
It is hard to say: that's 2642 worth of revisions in V8. String (unicode) benchmark throughput was definitely greatly affected by improvements in string handling (both internal operations and writing then out of V8 heap through the API; V8 also reintroduced string slices to avoid copying of characters for long substrings). Other notable things on the compiler front: V8 has switched to a new counting profiler from statistical one, and now makes slightly different optimization decisions. There were improvements in functions inlining (including inlining of constructors). There was some cleanup in invocation sequences for functions and we enabled type feedback for function calls through local variables on x64 (which opened the door to all optimizations that were dormant at such callsites: e.g. inlining or direct calls). Other notable things in the runtime: new GC has landed and was tweaked for quite some time. Unboxing of double arrays and tracking of smi-arrays (should not affect node.js though). I think the only way to see which changes in V8 resulted in throughput boosts is to get per-V8-revision measurements.

mytrile 14y ago

Yo Dawg, I've heard Node.js is blazing fast at "Hello, World" benchmarks - http://i50.tinypic.com/ibg8cp.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/ibg8cp.jpg "Aleph is a Clojure framework for asynchronous communication, built on top of Netty and Lamina."

obtu 14y ago

In the announcement: s/in favor of/in place of/, otherwise one can't parse which array implementation will be picked.

substack 14y ago

If you want to play with this new version but also have code running on older versions that hasn't been completely ported yet, I recommend using nave to manage your node versions. After you `npm install -g nave` you can just `nave install 0.8.0` to get node 0.8 then type `nave use 0.8.0` to start using it! https://github.com/isaacs/nave https://github.com/isaacs/nave

pooriaazimi 14y ago
Or 'nvm'[1], or 'n'[2]... All of them are bash-specific so if you're using 'fish' for example (what I really like to), you're out of luck and you must hack your own. [1]: https://github.com/creationix/nvm https://github.com/creationix/nvm [2]: https://github.com/visionmedia/n https://github.com/visionmedia/n

nfriedly 14y ago

Does anybody know the details on cluster.autoFork()? http://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html http://nodejs.org/api/cluster.html has it in a couple of examples, but not documented - is that supposed to be there?