JSJ 267 Node 8 with Mikeal Rogers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen

JSJ 267 Node 8 with Mikeal Rogers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen

On today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber we have panelists Joe Eames, AJ O’Neil, Amiee Knight and Charles Max Wood and we are talking about Node 8. To help us we have special guests Mikeal Rodgers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen. It’s going to be a great show. Tune in.

[1:56] Is Node 8 just an update or is there more?

More than just an update
Two main points:
Improved Prana support
Native API
Native APIs are helpful for Native Add-ons. For both the consumer and the developer side.
Prior to update these Node Native modules ran in C++ and bound to specific to Node 8 APIs.
Causes these modules to be updated or reconciled every time these modules are rereleased.
Creates burden for module maintainers.
Creates friction in upgrading Node versions in production departments.
If you have a deployment depending on a certain Native module, some of the modules may not get updated in time when updating your Node versions. Keeping people from updating Node.
Creates compatibility issues with Node users not using Node 8
Experimental support for a Native layer in Node 8 to eliminate these issues as much as possible.
Important milestone for the module ecosystem.
You can write extensions for Node in C++ and it decouples V8 so you can use something else on the front.
Modules takes dependency on V8 API specific to a particular version. So if V8 changes your module will be extracted from that.
As a side benefit, you can have another VM to take advantage of that.
Major version upgrades mean updating Native modules and usually some of those modules haven’t updated to the newest version of Node and be complicated.
Deep dependency wise, about 30% depends on a Native module somewhere
In the future, with the Native API, you’ll be able to update Node without breaking modules.

[5:51] What kind of work went into this?

Most of the work was in C++
First thing that was done was, they looked at the top dependent Native modules in the ecosystem.
Looked for what kind of V8 exposure they had and cataloged it
Looked at how these APIs and what their purposes were
Looked for a way to extract them so that they are part of Node Core
Created neutral APIs, now part of the Node core.
All C APIs
Also has a C++ wrapper to improves usability of the API.

[7:17] What’s an example of what you can do with these APIs?

Native modules allows for tighter integration and better module performance
Specific APIs that you can use in V8 that isn’t available through JavaScript
If you have a C++ variable code and you want to expose a variable into JavaScript, that is V8 API note a Node 8 API
Having it bound directly to the VM was something they wanted for a long time
Google controls V8 and they bind to V8
Created a better relationship with Google starting in IOJS
Also worked with Microsoft with their Node Shocker work.
Same with SpiderMonkey

SpiderNode is in the works

[9:23] Have you guys done any testing for performance?

Some. There is a performance working group.
There is a need to stay on top of V8
V8 team has focused on new language features
Many features have been added over the years
Many didn’t come in optimized
The performance profile has changed with these features
If you’re using new language features, you will see a performance boost
In core, still tracking down code that was specific to the old optimizer and rewriting i to work the new optimizer

Turbo C compiler hasn’t landed yet, but is to come.
Will have a completely different performance profile
In most real world applications it will be faster
Waiting on the release to take a version of V8 to make it easier to upgrade features in the future

[11:28] Are the new features picked up from V8 or implemented in Node?

It’s all in V8
Better longterm support
Promises are made better in Node as a platform
Added new method called util.promisify()

Implementation comes from V8
Allows for more optimization for promises in Node core
Promise support for the one-deprecated domains module.

[13:02] Is there anything more than NMP 5?

First off, delete your NMP cache.
It’s in your home directory usually with a .npm extension

[14:09] What are the new features in V8?

Unlimited heap sizes, previously had a 4gb limit. No fixed limit.

[14:09] Will you see things like chakra come out tuned for servers?

Profiles of a server for application process are getting smaller
Getting cut into containers and VMs and micro services
Vms that have cold boot time and run quickly in a strained environment is looking more like what we will see in the future
Yes, especially if you’re using cloud functions
V8 is optimized for phones, but Chakra is even more so
Looking for opportunities for VMs can be solely optimized for a device target
Node take advantage of that VM
VM neutrality is an interesting concept
VM Vendors trying to optimize it based on workloads of a server
Opens opportunities for Node
Node Chakra has been proved to iOS. You can cut off jitting off which was a requirement to be able to be in the Apple App Store
Node is not just for servers anymore
Node doesn’t take a long time configuring it
When a developer runs code on an IoT or a mobile app they don’t control the VM that is bundled, they run it on top of Node and it just works.
VM neutrality gives a new vector, so you can swam a whole different VM

[18:44] When running different engines like iOS vs Android, does the profile change?

What it comes down to is if it’s eventive programming
The browser is an eventive environment, is very efficient waiting for things to happen before it does something
The way that we program servers and nodes are the same as well
the basics are the same generally
environmental differences exist but the programming model is usually the same
What does impact it is memory and processor and hardware and things like that
That is where tuning the VM comes into play

[20:29] What is the new Async Hooks API used for?

Node has been lacking for automated inspection of Async Hook
No way for Node to tell you when scheduling and beginning of an Async operation. Hook helps with that
it’s a way for developers to write debugging features
Node tells the application that it’s working with Asynchronous way.
The embedded inspector has been embedded since Node 6
Now has a JavaScript API to use it
You can use things like Chrome debugger inside the running node process
Old debugging protocol has been removed
VM.run is still there but in the process of being deprecated

[22:34] How like is the experimental Node API will change?

Marked as experimental because it’s the first time in the open
Hopefully out of experimental soon
Soon can port API to the existing LTS
Looking for more people to participate with the new API and give feedback
Fix any concerns before it goes to LTS
Some other experimental things are in the works like ASync Hooks and how it interacts with promises
Renaming some features
Another new feature - serializer and deserializer that comes with V8
experimental but will most likely stay

[25:31] what is your standard for going to LTS?

Major releases every 6 months
Next Oct Node 9 will come out and then Node 8 will be LTS
Documentation, updates, additions etc will be ready then
Plan to do it for 2.5 years
Every even releases come out to LTS as the odd release comes out
Helps keeps a current line while having something new in the release line
Node 6 is the current LTS version

[27:26] What are you taking out or deprecating in Node 8?

Use the word deprecate sparingly
If many people use features, it’s hard to get rid of
Security issue with Buffer, constructor argument was ambiguous
Had added APIs that were more explicit over time and pushed those
Now it will be deprecated

[28:43] 21% - 33% Performance increase with some Node updates

Someone online updated their React app to Node 8 and found an 21% - 33% increase
Benchmarking group tests to make sure things are getting faster
V8 is always getting faster as well
Code changes fast and so there is a chance performance slows down so they have people to check
Benchmark test are all automated by a team

[30:47] Is it safe to just switch to Node 8?

For front-end, yes
clear your NPM cache
Back use cases will usually wait until LTS

[31:28] Where any of the features hard to implement?

The API work took about a year
It was a collaboration which made it interesting
IBM, Intel, Google were involved
The collaboration took a while
Also Async hooks took at least a year.
Async hooks used to be called async wraps and has been in the work for almost 3 years
many of the changes were the accumulation of small chances

[33:07] It’s the little things

Letting people get small changes in accumulate into a big difference
the product gets much better that way

[33:57] What versions of Node are you actively updating?

Current releases of Node 8 for a half of year
Node 6 is LTS
Additional year of maintenance of previous LTSs.
Schedule is at http://github.com/node8js/lts in a chart
Support for Node 4 with only critical updates, Node 6 minor updates, and Node 8
Node 7 doesn’t get much support unless it’s vital security supports.
If you’re running 0.10 or 0.12 stop. Those do not get security fixes anymore

[35:42] Where do you see things going from here?

Mostly still working out Async hooks
Maybe add some web worker or worker support for Node JS
ES module support
Working to make promises better
Working on the performance profile and internal systems

[20:29] What is the adoption like of Node 8?

Node team gets better at getting people to adopt quickly
but about 5% - 6% will not upgrade
community doubles each year at 8 million users right now
Here is a graph on Twitter posted by NPM
Limiting breaks and softly deprecating things makes it’s easier to upgrade

[40:11] How can people contribute and get involved?

NodeToDo.org shows how to make contribution
Occasionally major conferences have information on how to contribute
Test it out and help make it stronger

[42:08] If people install Node 8 and have issues what can they do?

If it’s an NPM problem check with them
clear cache!
install newest version with: npm install -g npm@latest

Report problems to either NPM or Node

If you’re not sure where the problem is, check github.com/nodejs/help

Links

Node8 Node’s Twitter Node’s Medium Node Evangelism Group

Mikael on Twitter and GitHub Arunesh on Twitter Anna on Twitter

Picks

AJ

Overclocked Remix Super Mario RPG Window to The Stars

Amiee

Blogpost RisingStack on Node 8

2 Frugal Dudes

Charles

Homeland

House of Cards

Joe

Shimmer Lake

Mikael

Blake2b-wasm

Aremesh

Current Nightly News

Special Guests: Anna Henningsen, Arunesh Chandra, and Mikeal Rogers.