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Node v4.0.0

nodejs.org

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Re: Node v4.0.0

#71

Post by dcwca »

blowski wrote: post #60
sanderjd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two separate things in your comment: the recent instability is due to the leadership power struggle that has been resolved, but the "no recommended approach" problem is more the result of a philosophy that encourages tiny pieces, new ideas, and reinvention, which is both a blessing and a curse, and seems unlikely to change.

You can have both. An 'officially recommended approach' does not preclude 1000 unofficial but working approaches. However, it does it make it a lot easier for someone dipping their toes in. With Node for core and basic problems, I find myself thinking "Should I follow this blog post written by a highly respected developer but which is a year old and therefore forever in Node-land, or this blog post written last week…

I can't reply to the grand-child of this post, so here's my reply.

It seems that you don't like Node and are intent not to use it. I respect that and am not trying to push it. I think asynchronous programming in the reactor pattern is a good solution pattern for many types of problems, and Node.js is a solid application of that pattern. But it certainly is more complicated than synchronous programming in the kinds of environments you listed.

I do wonder however what compels you to shit all over a thread celebrating a project milestone with an opinion that comes from an admitted lack of knowledge.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#72

Post by nawitus »

msoad wrote: post #32

When node supports `import` how you'll import node modules? I hope it works like this import {readFile} from 'fs'; import {clone} from 'lodash'; rather than explicitly providing "correct" URL to the modules. EDIT: edited the syntax.

You can already use that syntax with Babel.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#73

Post by blowski »

untog wrote: post #53
blowski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that Node can and will become more stable. It feels like it has too much momentum not to. But until it does achieve stability, it's difficult to use it for anything serious without investing a lot of time into it. Perhaps Go is a better comparison than Ruby and Python.

it's difficult to use it for anything serious without investing a lot of time into it. Isn't that true for many platforms? Either way, I have multiple apps running Node in production, and I've never had the issues described. You don't have to be as breakneck as Node itself - some things I have are still running v0.10x just fine.

> Isn't that true for many platforms?

I would say that the ROI is lower for time spent learning Node. I've found that with all the other languages I've learnt, in a couple of days I've been able to build something useful, leave it running in production and reuse skills learned a year later.

With Node, even the name of the language is not stable! A few weeks back I went to install Zombie, and now I have to install iojs and not Node. Assumedly it's now Node again. If you live and breathe the language, subscribe to the mailing lists, go to the meetups, etc, these things might be obvious. But when you're just dipping in and out, it really dents your confidence in the language.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#74

Post by ausjke »

the iojs site mentioned nothing about the merge as I checked yesterday, neither does nodejs site, which is a bit odd.

the new version number is using iojs instead of nodejs's existing version scheme, which is interesting too.

I just began a php device-configuration-management project and was strongly persuaded by a senior php developer that I should use nodejs instead, as he thinks nodejs _is_ the future and many big guns are using it for real deployment(netflix, linkedin,paypal...), just in time to try the fresh nodejs release for the new project.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#75

Post by outpost »

collyw wrote: post #51
hamhamed wrote: post #13

This is crazy fast shipment..almost scary that you have to start keeping up with all the changes.. For anyone who wants to upgrade either from node 0.12 or iojs 3.30..all you have to do is re-install it with the GUI installer and you're good to go..for your personal computer at least!

...all you have to do is re-install it with the GUI installer and you're good to go And fix all the incompatible changes in your own code.

Unless of course..you are from iojs

Re: Node v4.0.0

#76

Post by aikah »

untog wrote: post #35
blowski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who uses Node only at the periphery of my role (for things like the Zombie browser, and SASS parsing) the massive instability has put me off from relying on it for anything core. Documentation is quickly out of date, libraries seem to have incompatibilities which only become obvious when they don't work, there's no 'recommended' approach for even basic tasks. I won't pretend I'm speaking for everyone, as…

I mean, Ruby was created in 1995, Python in 1991. Node was first released in 2009. That's not an entirely fair comparison since, of course, JavaScript was created long before Node, but Node introduced the language to a new environment, and a lot of complications needed (and in some cases, still need) to be sorted out. As for no recommend approach - that's deliberate. I don't think most people working on Node want a R…

> I don't think most people working on Node want a Rails equivalent

It wouldn't really be possible anyway. Async programming is hard and the shortcuts one can take with synchronous Ruby are impossible with Async Javascript. Nodejs has a "fibers" lib though , but it doesn't look like it is widely popular, but AFAIK it is the only to truly abstract async programming.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#77

Post by actualprogram »

saghul wrote: post #42
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious - what makes it "stable"? We've tried 0.12, then went back to 0.10 for stability reasons.

No software is bug free, but AFAIK Node v4 was very thoroughly tested in a vast array of platforms and configurations, which provides certain degree of certainty, when talking about stability. At any rate, if you ran into issues with 0.12, the best you can do is give 4.0 a go and report issues!

If you're concerned with stability, the best thing you can do is wait for the LTS release to come off the 4 branch.

A quick glance at outstanding issues will show a number of integration bugs are still outstanding, and the new v8 was landed only a few days previously - incompatibilities with new versions of v8 can take a while to surface in node.

It's important to remember that semver makes no promises about stability. While we're used to "N.0" meaning "stable and ready for upgrade," that's a non-semver idea that is explicitly disregarded in the semver release model. Node moving from 3.* to 4.0.0 only indicates that there are breaking changes(1).

If you have concerns about stability, you should take signals on that from the node LTS group, and pick LTS releases.

1 - whether or not this is good, bad, or merely a different permutation of the things that are turning your hair grey, I leave as an exercise to the reader.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#78

Post by blowski »

dcwca wrote: post #71
blowski wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have both. An 'officially recommended approach' does not preclude 1000 unofficial but working approaches. However, it does it make it a lot easier for someone dipping their toes in. With Node for core and basic problems, I find myself thinking "Should I follow this blog post written by a highly respected developer but which is a year old and therefore forever in Node-land, or this blog post written last week…

I can't reply to the grand-child of this post, so here's my reply. It seems that you don't like Node and are intent not to use it. I respect that and am not trying to push it. I think asynchronous programming in the reactor pattern is a good solution pattern for many types of problems, and Node.js is a solid application of that pattern. But it certainly is more complicated than synchronous programming in the kinds of…

I'm not 'shitting all over Node'. I do use it for certain applications, and would love to use it more because it is a fantastic solution for some problems. As a back-end for websockets it's in a league of its own, and 'Isomorphic JavaScript' is very exciting if you ever need to hire developers.

I am using this discussion as a means of saying "here's what I think Node needs to get more people using it in production". My opinion is that they need to do more work on stability of the API, and improve documentation, to win over us enterprise types who value long-term stability over short-term features.

Re: Node v4.0.0

#80

Post by dragonwriter »

ausjke wrote: post #74

the iojs site mentioned nothing about the merge as I checked yesterday, neither does nodejs site, which is a bit odd. the new version number is using iojs instead of nodejs's existing version scheme, which is interesting too. I just began a php device-configuration-management project and was strongly persuaded by a senior php developer that I should use nodejs instead, as he thinks nodejs _is_ the future and many big…

> the new version number is using iojs instead of nodejs's existing version scheme, which is interesting too.

Well, its a follow-on to both pre-merge iojs and pre-merge nodejs, and has breaking changes to both, so the most SEMVER consistent version number is the first major version greater than the greater of pre-merge iojs's last version number and pre-merge node's last version number -- which is exactly what they chose.

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