8 ms·

Node v0.10.0 (Stable)

245 points by binarymax 14y ago

ebbv 14y ago
It's great to see Node mature. When it first came out I was among the many people who said "That's neat.", played with it a bit and moved on. But I wanted to make a meeting agenda site, since I don't like any of the ones out there right now. So the last 4 days I worked on one writing it as a JS web app that talks to a Node backend. It was quite painless. Anything I wanted to do (whether generating uuids, date formatting, etc.) there was a module available on npm. Couldn't be easier. The platform has really matured a lot, and I didn't run into any issues with Node itself. If you haven't yet, the next time you're doing an experiment, give it a try. I will probably write my next project this way too.
- jeswin 14y ago
  The pace at which libraries have come up around Node is astounding. Mostly probably the fastest growing eco-system ever.
  - umphetico 14y ago
    Yes, quite literally there's more library than we developers/hackers can play with. I've spent a lot of time just browsing through all of them and they are all excellent. But there seems to be 3 types of npm modules on github, 1) active and mature 2)fairly new, stagnating, seldom active 3) abandoned.
    - alexpopescu 14y ago
      How is this any different to the status of other projects in other environments?
      - umphetico 14y ago
        Nice try, not going to point specific fingers at certain environments out of risk getting flamed.
- veneratio 14y ago
  My first brush with Node was in a class. We chose to try it for a game only about 5 months after Node's initial release. It was cool and fun to work with but ultimately a bit rough. After a year's break, I can now say I love Node. I'm glad your return was just as encouraging.
- umphetico 14y ago
  Pretty much the same case here, I've abandoned LAMP stack completely. There's no need anymore, I am tired of having to google how to setup Apache config on some esoteric distro to see it fail when traffic spikes, I am not getting the best bang for the buck but with NodeJS, everything is so much easier.
  - gmac 14y ago
    (Though, of course, there are plenty of other alternatives to LAMP -- I find Nginx, Postgres, and Ruby or Python preferable in pretty much every way).
    - ebbv 14y ago
      I think having NodeJS serve up static content is a waste of time, and that's not its intended use case. So I'm with you. I set my server up with nginx serving up static content, and when an API call is made nginx proxies to my Node app.
      - umphetico 14y ago
        Why is it a waste of time? There are plenty of good solutions now like Hipache.
        NuZZ 14y ago
        Perhpas he means it's a waste of cpu time :)
    - umphetico 14y ago
      All very good alternatives of course.
- nashequilibrium 14y ago
  I really like nodejs as well but i have some concerns, i built an app in tornado and then i wanted to try out node, so i built it in node as well with a postgres backend. I was surprised how much faster my tornado app was: using bcrypt blocking module for tornado with a factor of 8 gives me 42.51ms for login, on node i get 153ms, geting a user profile 6.7ms on tornado and 16ms on nodejs. These results are consistent across the app, where tornado seems to about 3 times faster. I am assuming that maybe this is due to the quality of the libraries, since i assume node is faster. Reading this article,(https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/11/fully-loaded-node-a-node-js-holiday-season-part-2/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/11/fully-loaded-node-a-node-j...) helped to understand node more as well as how some of the libraries deal with threading and async.
  - jongleberry 14y ago
    1) are you using the synchronous or asynchronous version of bcrypt? 2) cached or uncached templates? 3) throw 1k+ requests per second and tell us which one is faster
    - nashequilibrium 14y ago
      I am using the aync bcrypt module for nodejs. I am using it as an api for ios app. I will do the 1k test and let you know.
pfraze 14y ago
probably most happy off the bat to see performance gains (who doesn't like that?). I'm hoping the fs readstream boost will help with static hosting.
niggler 14y ago
I find the strength, openness, and responsiveness of the community (mailing list, freenode IRC chat) to be node's greatest asset. They've done an amazing job in building culture and that should serve node well as it matures.
Raphael 14y ago
Why 0.10 and not 1.0?
- hashmymustache 14y ago
  This is a better version of my question. Why use dot decimal notation unless just a fun way to model versions after network addresses
  - goodwink 14y ago
    The dot indicates division of something into smaller parts. For most things we choose our range for the minor denomination to coincide with our base or a multiple thereof like having 100 cents in a dollar, but software being what it is we need to be slightly more flexible.
- quarterto 14y ago
  Version numbers aren't like numbers. Don't read the . as "point". It's "major dot minor dot release". There's no reason to increment the major version just if the minor version happens to coincide with the number base we use. That's for versions with backwards compatibility breaks (apart from 1.0, which defines the stable public API). See http://semver.org/ http://semver.org/.
- AdamTReineke 14y ago
  This is toward the end of the page (seems that they're still making major changes, but not breaking backwards compatability. Looks like 1.0 will mostly lock down new features): "After 0.12, the next major stable release will be 1.0. At that point, very little will change in terms of the day-to-day operation of the project, but it will mark a significant milestone in terms of our stability and willingness to add new features. However, we've already gotten strict about maintaining backwards compatibility, so this won't really be so much of a shift. "
- UNIXgod 14y ago
  They are actually using meaningful numbers. 1.x generally describes maturity. More so it means the software toolkit is, for the most part, stable and ready for the real world. Since version numbering in the closed source world generally helps sell products it's nice to see an open source project act as it should where the first number after the point increments as features are added and the second number with an optional second point reflects bug fixes and patches. It's a big deal when a version hits 1.x. A project like node.js doesn't have to pander to the masses like mozilla did with the firefox so called pseudo psychological numbering scheme.
latchkey 14y ago
Very cool. I just tried it with my app. Can't run it until a few npm modules are updated to support it and of course Heroku needs to be updated to use it too. How bleeding edge. =)
hashmymustache 14y ago
This is probably a stupid question that can be answered if I read the docs, but how does versioning work? I love using node, but seeing 0.10.0 makes it appear like such young, teething software that people might immediately dismiss it if not for its user base. Why not call this node 10.0 and start at 0.1 instead of having another 0 that looks like it won't ever increment. Does it reflect a developer's sense of completeness or confidence in his/her software or does it come from quantifiable steps toward stability/speed?
- mcantelon 14y ago
  Node uses semantic versioning: http://semver.org/ http://semver.org/
  - randallsquared 14y ago
    Not perfectly: "If your software is being used in production, it should probably already be 1.0.0."
    - dragonwriter 14y ago
      > Not perfectly: "If your software is being used in production, it should probably already be 1.0.0." "Probably" is, ipso facto, not normative.
    - niggler 14y ago
      The public API is not stable, hence a 0.xx number is justified.
      - randallsquared 14y ago
        That doesn't seem to match what the semver.org site says. Node's public API is not changing in a backward-incompatible way every day (or even every week, or every month). The software is widely used in production. I think node 1.0.0 should have been some time ago, and this release should have bumped the major version again.
marcocampos 14y ago
Can some recomend some decent source material to learn about Node.js and some best practices about it? I've read "The Node Beginner Book" and found it quite easy but somehow it didn't click.
- cphang 14y ago
  [How do I get started with Node.js](http://stackoverflow.com/a/5511507/251453 http://stackoverflow.com/a/5511507/251453)
- Hortinstein 14y ago
  I would read the core documentation (maybe takes 4 hours), then find a project you to do in node and do a lot of googling on ways to get certain aspects done. It is an unstructured way to learn and can be slightly inefficient since you will go down a few rabbit holes, but I think you will learn a lot more and have a lot more fun. When you are in the docs make sure you focus on stream, callbacks, and event emitters. Once you have those down start gluing NPM modules together.
VeejayRampay 14y ago
I'm neither a user nor a fan, but congratulations on the release and good luck for all of Node's future endeavours.
gordondevoe 14y ago
very excited about the new version but probably won't bother upgrading my app until a few weeks. Is there a 'one liner' command to update node on OSX?
- veidr 14y ago
  Well, there's a 'one double-clicker': you just run the OS X Installer package and it will update you.
- notlion 14y ago
  brew upgrade node ;)
przemoc 14y ago
I hope that nodejs debian maintainers will package it into sid soon. v0.8 was never there. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692312 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692312

245 points by binarymax 14y ago

ebbv 14y ago

It's great to see Node mature. When it first came out I was among the many people who said "That's neat.", played with it a bit and moved on. But I wanted to make a meeting agenda site, since I don't like any of the ones out there right now. So the last 4 days I worked on one writing it as a JS web app that talks to a Node backend. It was quite painless. Anything I wanted to do (whether generating uuids, date formatting, etc.) there was a module available on npm. Couldn't be easier. The platform has really matured a lot, and I didn't run into any issues with Node itself. If you haven't yet, the next time you're doing an experiment, give it a try. I will probably write my next project this way too.

jeswin 14y ago
The pace at which libraries have come up around Node is astounding. Mostly probably the fastest growing eco-system ever.
- umphetico 14y ago
  Yes, quite literally there's more library than we developers/hackers can play with. I've spent a lot of time just browsing through all of them and they are all excellent. But there seems to be 3 types of npm modules on github, 1) active and mature 2)fairly new, stagnating, seldom active 3) abandoned.
  - alexpopescu 14y ago
    How is this any different to the status of other projects in other environments?
    - umphetico 14y ago
      Nice try, not going to point specific fingers at certain environments out of risk getting flamed.
veneratio 14y ago
My first brush with Node was in a class. We chose to try it for a game only about 5 months after Node's initial release. It was cool and fun to work with but ultimately a bit rough. After a year's break, I can now say I love Node. I'm glad your return was just as encouraging.
umphetico 14y ago
Pretty much the same case here, I've abandoned LAMP stack completely. There's no need anymore, I am tired of having to google how to setup Apache config on some esoteric distro to see it fail when traffic spikes, I am not getting the best bang for the buck but with NodeJS, everything is so much easier.
- gmac 14y ago
  (Though, of course, there are plenty of other alternatives to LAMP -- I find Nginx, Postgres, and Ruby or Python preferable in pretty much every way).
  - ebbv 14y ago
    I think having NodeJS serve up static content is a waste of time, and that's not its intended use case. So I'm with you. I set my server up with nginx serving up static content, and when an API call is made nginx proxies to my Node app.
    - umphetico 14y ago
      Why is it a waste of time? There are plenty of good solutions now like Hipache.
      - NuZZ 14y ago
        Perhpas he means it's a waste of cpu time :)
  - umphetico 14y ago
    All very good alternatives of course.
nashequilibrium 14y ago
I really like nodejs as well but i have some concerns, i built an app in tornado and then i wanted to try out node, so i built it in node as well with a postgres backend. I was surprised how much faster my tornado app was: using bcrypt blocking module for tornado with a factor of 8 gives me 42.51ms for login, on node i get 153ms, geting a user profile 6.7ms on tornado and 16ms on nodejs. These results are consistent across the app, where tornado seems to about 3 times faster. I am assuming that maybe this is due to the quality of the libraries, since i assume node is faster. Reading this article,(https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/11/fully-loaded-node-a-node-js-holiday-season-part-2/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/11/fully-loaded-node-a-node-j...) helped to understand node more as well as how some of the libraries deal with threading and async.
- jongleberry 14y ago
  1) are you using the synchronous or asynchronous version of bcrypt? 2) cached or uncached templates? 3) throw 1k+ requests per second and tell us which one is faster
  - nashequilibrium 14y ago
    I am using the aync bcrypt module for nodejs. I am using it as an api for ios app. I will do the 1k test and let you know.

pfraze 14y ago

probably most happy off the bat to see performance gains (who doesn't like that?). I'm hoping the fs readstream boost will help with static hosting.

niggler 14y ago

I find the strength, openness, and responsiveness of the community (mailing list, freenode IRC chat) to be node's greatest asset. They've done an amazing job in building culture and that should serve node well as it matures.

Raphael 14y ago

Why 0.10 and not 1.0?

hashmymustache 14y ago
This is a better version of my question. Why use dot decimal notation unless just a fun way to model versions after network addresses
- goodwink 14y ago
  The dot indicates division of something into smaller parts. For most things we choose our range for the minor denomination to coincide with our base or a multiple thereof like having 100 cents in a dollar, but software being what it is we need to be slightly more flexible.
quarterto 14y ago
Version numbers aren't like numbers. Don't read the . as "point". It's "major dot minor dot release". There's no reason to increment the major version just if the minor version happens to coincide with the number base we use. That's for versions with backwards compatibility breaks (apart from 1.0, which defines the stable public API). See http://semver.org/ http://semver.org/.
AdamTReineke 14y ago
This is toward the end of the page (seems that they're still making major changes, but not breaking backwards compatability. Looks like 1.0 will mostly lock down new features): "After 0.12, the next major stable release will be 1.0. At that point, very little will change in terms of the day-to-day operation of the project, but it will mark a significant milestone in terms of our stability and willingness to add new features. However, we've already gotten strict about maintaining backwards compatibility, so this won't really be so much of a shift. "
UNIXgod 14y ago
They are actually using meaningful numbers. 1.x generally describes maturity. More so it means the software toolkit is, for the most part, stable and ready for the real world. Since version numbering in the closed source world generally helps sell products it's nice to see an open source project act as it should where the first number after the point increments as features are added and the second number with an optional second point reflects bug fixes and patches. It's a big deal when a version hits 1.x. A project like node.js doesn't have to pander to the masses like mozilla did with the firefox so called pseudo psychological numbering scheme.

latchkey 14y ago

Very cool. I just tried it with my app. Can't run it until a few npm modules are updated to support it and of course Heroku needs to be updated to use it too. How bleeding edge. =)

hashmymustache 14y ago

This is probably a stupid question that can be answered if I read the docs, but how does versioning work? I love using node, but seeing 0.10.0 makes it appear like such young, teething software that people might immediately dismiss it if not for its user base. Why not call this node 10.0 and start at 0.1 instead of having another 0 that looks like it won't ever increment. Does it reflect a developer's sense of completeness or confidence in his/her software or does it come from quantifiable steps toward stability/speed?

mcantelon 14y ago
Node uses semantic versioning: http://semver.org/ http://semver.org/
- randallsquared 14y ago
  Not perfectly: "If your software is being used in production, it should probably already be 1.0.0."
  - dragonwriter 14y ago
    > Not perfectly: "If your software is being used in production, it should probably already be 1.0.0." "Probably" is, ipso facto, not normative.
  - niggler 14y ago
    The public API is not stable, hence a 0.xx number is justified.
    - randallsquared 14y ago
      That doesn't seem to match what the semver.org site says. Node's public API is not changing in a backward-incompatible way every day (or even every week, or every month). The software is widely used in production. I think node 1.0.0 should have been some time ago, and this release should have bumped the major version again.

marcocampos 14y ago

Can some recomend some decent source material to learn about Node.js and some best practices about it? I've read "The Node Beginner Book" and found it quite easy but somehow it didn't click.

cphang 14y ago
[How do I get started with Node.js](http://stackoverflow.com/a/5511507/251453 http://stackoverflow.com/a/5511507/251453)
Hortinstein 14y ago
I would read the core documentation (maybe takes 4 hours), then find a project you to do in node and do a lot of googling on ways to get certain aspects done. It is an unstructured way to learn and can be slightly inefficient since you will go down a few rabbit holes, but I think you will learn a lot more and have a lot more fun. When you are in the docs make sure you focus on stream, callbacks, and event emitters. Once you have those down start gluing NPM modules together.

VeejayRampay 14y ago

I'm neither a user nor a fan, but congratulations on the release and good luck for all of Node's future endeavours.

gordondevoe 14y ago

very excited about the new version but probably won't bother upgrading my app until a few weeks. Is there a 'one liner' command to update node on OSX?

veidr 14y ago
Well, there's a 'one double-clicker': you just run the OS X Installer package and it will update you.
notlion 14y ago
brew upgrade node ;)

przemoc 14y ago

I hope that nodejs debian maintainers will package it into sid soon. v0.8 was never there. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692312 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692312