Tag: Performance

Measuring latency from the client side using Chrome DevTools and N|Solid

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Almost every modern web browser includes a powerful suite of developer tools. In our previous blog-post we covered __How to Measure Node.js server response time with N|Solid__, read more ???? HERE.

The developer tools have a lot of capabilities, from inspecting the current HTML-CSS and Javascript code to inspecting the current ongoing network communication client-server.

To open the devtools and analyze the network, you can go to:

“More Tools” > “Developer Tools” > “Network”

Being on the devtools screen now, you can visit your Fastify API(or express) http://localhost:3000 after you get an HTTP response, you will see the request itself, the HTTP status code, the response size, and the response time.

GIF 1 – devtools.gif

An explanation for the time measured by the Chrome DevTools, HERE.

Let’s measure the Client-Side Latency.

Remove the delay timer logic on your application and restart the Node.js process.

import Fastify from “fastify”;

const fastify = Fastify({
logger: true,
});

// Declare the root route and delay the response randomly
fastify.get(“/”, async function (request, reply) {
return { delayTime: 0 };
});

// Run the server!
fastify.listen({ port: 3000 }, function (err, address) {
if (err) {
fastify.log.error(err);
process.exit(1);
}
});

NOTE: Discover another useful code snippet in our ‘Measure Node.js server response time with N|Solid’ article! This time, learn how to simulate server-side latency to further test your application’s performance. Check it out: ???? HERE

After this, you will get the fastest response times of ~1 ms, I was able to execute 139k requests in 10 secs using autocannon.

npx autocannon localhost:3000

The main point here is to see how it behaves when we have a poor internet connection on the client side and the best possible performance on the server side; for this, we can simulate high latency and slow internet connections on the client side, using Chrome devtools which has this option out of the box.

Simulate Client-Side latency

In the Chrome Devtools:

Go to the “Network Conditions” option > Select the option “Network Throttling” > Set it to __“Slow 3G”__.

If you request your browser to the URL http://localhost:3000/, you’ll see a long response time, in our case, __~2 seconds__.

This response time doesn’t mean the server takes that long to process the request and return an answer that was the amount of time that the answer took to transfer over the network till it arrived at the client side.

If you check your Fastify logs of the N|Solid metrics, you’ll see the server only took ~1 ms to return.

Check your logs with N|Solid
HERE

In our case, the response time was 0.3 ms

“responseTime”:0.3490520715713501

Can I improve/help the client-side latency?

Well, it is possible to improve the user experience on client-side devices with high latency when you use a Content Delivery Network to cache content on edge locations geographically near to users’ devices; even implementing some simple compression mechanism will improve the load times on users’ devices with high latency.

Look at this Jonas, our Principal OSS Engineer, blog-post and see ???????? __How to create a fast SSR application__.

Connect with NodeSource

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or through this form.

To get the best out of Node.js and experience the benefits of its integrated features, including OpenTelemetry support, SBOM integration, and machine learning capabilities. Sign up for a free trial and see how N|Solid can help you achieve your development and operations goals. #KnowyourNode

Experience the Benefits of N|Solid’s Integrated Features
Sign up for a Free Trial Today

Measure Node.js server response time with N|Solid

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As software developers, we constantly face new challenges in an ever-changing ecosystem. However, we must always remember the importance of addressing performance and security concerns, which remain at the top of our priority list.

To ensure that our applications based on Node.js can meet our performance and scalability needs without compromising security or incurring costly infrastructure changes, we must be aware of the importance of network optimization in Node.js.

The Impact of Latency/Ping Time on the Performance and Speed of Your Node.js Application

IMG – Ping Cats – via GIPHY

This communication, known as network ping time or latency, is a crucial factor that impacts the performance and speed of your application. Knowing how to measure network ping time between the browser and the server is essential for developers who want to optimize their applications and provide a better user experience. _Have you ever wondered how long it takes for your application to communicate with the server? _

Network Optimization in Node.js

To ensure the optimal performance and scalability of our Node.js applications, we must accurately measure our HTTP server’s connection and response time. Doing so enables us to identify and address potential bottlenecks without compromising security or incurring unnecessary infrastructure changes.

Before delving deeper into measuring connection and response time, let’s explore fundamental concepts and critical differentiators in the network landscape.

HTTP vs. WebSocket:

HTTP and WebSocket are communication protocols used in web development but serve different purposes. HTTP is a stateless protocol commonly used for client-server communication, while WebSocket enables full-duplex communication between clients and servers, allowing real-time data exchange.

Types of Connections and Versions:

When creating APIs, HTTP as a protocol and standard has different versions, such as HTTP 1.1 and 2.0. Additionally, APIs may use alternative protocols like gRPC, which offer different features and capabilities. Understanding these options empowers developers to choose the most suitable tools for their web servers.

TCP/IP Basics:

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) are fundamental protocols that form the backbone of computer networks. Among TCP’s critical processes is the three-way handshake, which plays a vital role in establishing a secure and dependable connection between two endpoints. This handshake ensures the orderly and reliable transmission of data. TLS/SSL encryption enhances security, adding an extra layer of protection to the communication between the client and the server.

HTTP vs. HTTPS:

HTTP operates over plain text, which exposes the data being transmitted to potential eavesdropping and tampering.
HTTPS, on the other hand, secures communication through the use of SSL/TLS encryption, providing confidentiality and integrity.
Understanding the trade-offs between HTTP and HTTPS is crucial to making informed data security decisions.

Building a Solid Foundation: Understanding the Three-Way Handshake for Reliable Connections

To evaluate the performance of our HTTP server, we need to differentiate between connection latency and server response time. Connection latency refers to the time it takes for the initial three-way handshake process to complete before data transmission can occur. On the other hand, server response time measures the duration from when the server receives a request to when it generates and sends the response back to the client.

The three-way handshake is a fundamental process in establishing a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection between a client and a server in a network. It involves three steps, a “three-way handshake.” This handshake establishes a reliable and ordered communication channel between the two endpoints.

Here’s a breakdown of the three steps involved in the three-way handshake:

__SYN (Synchronize)__: The client initiates the connection by sending an SYN packet (synchronize) to the server. This packet contains a randomly generated sequence number to initiate the communication.
__SYN-ACK (Synchronize-Acknowledge)__: Upon receiving the SYN packet, the server acknowledges the request by sending an SYN-ACK packet back to the client. The SYN-ACK packet includes its own randomly generated sequence number and an acknowledgment number equal to the client’s sequence number plus one.
__ACK (Acknowledge)__: Finally, the client sends an ACK packet (acknowledge) to the server, confirming the receipt of the SYN-ACK packet. This packet also contains the acknowledgment number equal to the server’s sequence plus one.

Once this three-way handshake process is completed, the client and the server have agreed upon initial sequence numbers, and a reliable connection is established between them. This connection allows for data transmission with proper sequencing and error detection mechanisms, ensuring that the information sent between the client and server is reliable and accurate.

The three-way handshake is essential to establishing TCP connections and is performed before any data transmission can occur. It plays a critical role in ensuring the integrity and reliability of the communication channel, providing a solid foundation for subsequent data exchange between the client and server.

Create a self-serve diagnostic tool for a server-rendered page in Node.js.

The idea is to share an easy-to-follow recipe that will help you create your tool, so let’s start with the ingredients and end with the steps to create a self-serve diagnostic tool for a server-rendered page in Node.js.

Ingredients:

Node.js & NPM installation – https://nodejs.org/

Fastify.js – https://www.fastify.io/

Instructions:

1. Setup a Node.js Project
Use NPM to create your Node project:

$ mkdir diagnostic-tool-nodejs
$ cd diagnostic-tool-nodejs
$ npm init -y

2. Install your NPM packages.
We have Fastify in our recipe, so we must install them first:

$ npm i fastify

3. Create the index.mjs
Create an index.mjs file in the project’s root directory and paste this fastify HTTP server sample code.

import Fastify from “fastify”;

const fastify = Fastify({
logger: true,
});

// Randomly create a timer from 100ms up to X seconds
function timer(time) {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
const ms = Math.floor(Math.random() * time) + 100;
setTimeout(() => {
resolve(ms);
}, ms);
});
};

// Declare the root route and delay the response randomly
fastify.get(“/”, async function (request, reply) {
const wait = await timer(5000);
return { delayTime: wait };
});

// Run the server!
fastify.listen({ port: 3000 }, function (err, address) {
if (err) {
fastify.log.error(err);
process.exit(1);
}
});

This will start the server on port 3000, which you can access by going to http://localhost:3000 in your web browser.

Integrate with N|Solid Console

Be sure you already have N|Solid installed and running on your environment; otherwise, go to https://downloads.nodesource.com and get the installer.

Also, run the console using docker as an alternative to the local installation.

docker run -d -p 6753:6753 -p 9001:9001 -p 9002:9002 -p 9003:9003 nodesource/nsolid-console:hydrogen-alpine-latest

With the application already initialized with npm, Fastify installed, and our index.js in place, we can connect our process with N|Solid

Run the HTTP server with the NSOLID RUNTIME following the instructions on the principal console page.

IMG – Connect N|Solid

In this case, we ran the process by passing the config via environment variables and running a local installation of the Nsolid console.

NSOLID_APPNAME=”NSOLID_RESPONSE_TIME_APP” NSOLID_COMMAND=”127.0.0.1:9001″ nsolid index.mjs

If you instead use our SaaS console, you need to use the NSOLID_SAAS env instead of __NSOLID_COMMAND__.

NSOLID_APPNAME=”NSOLID_RESPONSE_TIME_APP” NSOLID_COMMAND=”XYZ.prod.proxy.saas.nodesource.io:9001″ nsolid index.mjs

After completing those steps, you should be able to watch the app and process connected to the console.

IMG – Connect N|Solid Process

GIF 1 – Connect N|Solid Process

Go to the application process and add the HTTP(S) Server 99th Percentile Duration metric to see in near-real time the HTTP server latency response time and also we have the HTTP(S) Request Median Duration.

GIF 2 – Monitor Process Metrics

After this, we should be able to generate some traffic and see how the response times behave with the sample code provided, generating some response time randomness from 100ms up to 5 secs.

To generate the traffic, we can use autocannon

npx autocannon -d 120 -R 60 localhost:3000

After running autocannon for some minutes, we can see the P99 metric of the HTTP Server. The median and compare them.

IMG – http-latency-response-time-metrics

IMG – http-request-median-duration

IMG – p99-metric

To fully utilize the metrics provided by N|Solid, it is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of their significance. Two critical metrics offered by N|Solid are the 99th Percentile and the HTTP Median metric. These metrics play a vital role in assessing the performance of Node.js applications in production environments. By getting deeper into their practical application and importance, we can unlock the actual value of these metrics in N|Solid and make informed decisions to optimize our production systems. Let’s explore this further.

The 99th Percentile metric

The 99th percentile is a statistical measure commonly used to analyze and understand response time or latency in a system.

Imagine you have a web application that handles incoming requests. To understand how fast the server responds, you measure the time it takes for each request and gather that data. You can find the 99th percentile response time by looking at the data.

For example, __the 99th percentile response time is 500 milliseconds__.
This means that only 1% of the requests took longer than 500 milliseconds to get a response. In simpler terms, 99% of the requests were handled in 500 milliseconds or less, which is fast.

It helps you identify and address any outliers or performance bottlenecks affecting a small fraction of requests but can significantly impact the user experience or system stability. Monitoring the 99th percentile response time helps you spot any slow requests or performance issues that might affect a few users but still need attention. but can have a significant impact on user experience or system stability.

The HTTP median metric

When sorted in ascending or descending order, the median represents a dataset’s middle value.

To illustrate the difference between the 99th percentile and the median, let’s consider an example. Suppose you have a dataset of response times for a web application consisting of 10 values:
[100ms, 150ms, 200ms, 250ms, __500ms__, 600ms, 700ms, 800ms, 900ms, 1000ms].

The median response time would be the middle value when the dataset is sorted, which is the 5th value, 500ms. This means that 50% of the requests had a response time faster than 500ms, and the other 50% had a response time slower than 500ms.

Connect with NodeSource

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or through this form.

Experience the Benefits of N|Solid’s Integrated Features
Sign up for a Free Trial Today

To get the best out of Node.js and experience the benefits of its integrated features, including OpenTelemetry support, SBOM integration, and machine learning capabilities. Sign up for a free trial and see how N|Solid can help you achieve your development and operations goals. #KnowyourNode

Unleashing the Power of NCM: Safeguarding Node.js Applications with Next-Generation Security in N|Solid

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In the world of Node.js, application development, speed, flexibility, and scalability are critical for modern software development. However, the risk of vulnerabilities and security breaches looms with the increasing reliance on open-source Node packages. NCM (NodeSource Certified Modules) is the next-generation security solution that empowers Node.js developers to safeguard their applications easily and confidently.

This article will explore how NCM, a key N|Solid platform feature, revolutionizes how Node.js applications are secured, offering advanced security features, enhanced visibility, and peace of mind. Get ready to unleash the power of NCM and take your Node.js applications to new heights of security and reliability with N|Solid.

_Image 1 – Security Vulnerabilities in N|Solid View
_

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to try N|Solid for free and unlock the full potential of your Node.js applications.✍️ Sign up now and take your monitoring to the next level!

What is N|Solid?

_Image 2 – N|Solid Product View
_

N|Solid provides enhanced security for Node.js applications in production environments. It is built on top of the Node.js runtime. It provides a secure environment for running Node.js applications and advanced features such as worker threads monitoring, memory leak detection, and CPU profiling. We have +15 features in our product, including OpenTelemetry support, SBOM integration, and Machine Learning capabilities. Discover More HERE ‘__Top 10 N|Solid —APM for Node— features you needed to use__’ – HERE: ???????? nsrc.io/TopNSolidFeatures.

N|Solid offers many benefits over the standard Node.js runtime, including improved security through features like runtime vulnerability scanning, access control, and enhanced monitoring capabilities that allow developers to identify and address issues in real-time.

N|Solid is well-suited for enterprise applications requiring high performance, scalability, and security levels. It is widely used in finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. It is developed and maintained by __NodeSource__, a company specializing in enterprise-grade Node.js solutions.

In the previous section, we discussed N|Solid as a solution that provides enhanced security for Node.js applications in production environments. Let’s discuss the difference between NSolid Console, N|Solid Runtime, and N|Solid SaaS. It’s important to differentiate between these components for several reasons, including functionality, user experience, and flexibility.

What is the difference between NSolid Console, N|Solid Runtime, and N|Solid SaaS?

Differentiating between the Console, Runtime, and SaaS setup in N|Solid is essential for a few reasons: functionality, user experience, and flexibility.

Users can deploy N|Solid in multiple ways, including using the N|Solid Console, N|Solid Runtime, or N|Solid SaaS setup, depending on their requirements and infrastructure setup. It is essential to provide distinct functionalities to enhance user experience and offer flexibility in deployment options, allowing scalability, customization, and integration with existing workflows. Here’s a brief description of each:

N|Solid Runtime is the runtime environment for Node.js applications. It includes a modified version of the Node.js runtime, enhanced with additional security, monitoring, and debugging features. These features include advanced profiling and tracing capabilities, heap and CPU profiling, and runtime vulnerability scanning.
???????? https://bit.ly/NSolidRuntime-npm

_Image 3 – N|Solid Runtime Installation
_

__N|Solid Console__, on the other hand, is a web-based dashboard that provides a graphical user interface for monitoring and managing Node.js applications running on N|Solid Runtime. It lets users view their applications’ real-time metrics and performance data, monitor resource utilization, and set alerts for specific events or thresholds. N|Solid Console also provides features for managing user access and permissions, configuring application settings, and integrating with third-party tools and services. It can manage multiple N|Solid Runtimes across a distributed environment, making it ideal for large-scale enterprise deployments.
???????? https://nsrc.io/NSolidConsole

_Image 4 – N|Solid Console Overview
_

__N|Solid SaaS__: N|Solid also offers a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) setup so users can leverage N|Solid’s enhanced security and performance features without managing their own infrastructure. With N|Solid SaaS, users can simply sign up for a subscription and use N|Solid’s features through a cloud-based service without needing on-premises installation or maintenance. ???????? https://nsrc.io/NSolidSaaS

_Image 5 – N|Solid SaaS Overview
_

N|Solid offers multiple deployment options; these components provide distinct functionalities, user experiences, and deployment flexibilities, catering to the diverse needs of enterprise Node.js applications.

But, What about NCM?

NodeSource Certified Modules (NCM) is another product developed by NodeSource that provides you and your teams with actionable insights into the risk levels of using third-party packages. Using a series of tests, we score packages on npm to look for several weighted criteria. With NCM CLI, you can scan your projects for existing security vulnerabilities, license concerns, code risk, and code quality. This helps you understand the level of risk exposure and how to mitigate it. NodeSource Certified Modules (NCM) also work in offline mode. Explore Further ‘__Avoiding npm substitution attacks using NCM__’ HERE ????????https://nsrc.io/AvoidAttackswithNCM

_Image 6 – NCM CLI Report
_

NodeSource Certified Modules (NCM) is a security, compliance, and curation tool around the 3rd-Party Node.js & JavaScript package ecosystem. It is designed to be used with npm to provide protection against known security vulnerabilities and potential license compliance issues and provide general quality or risk assessment information to improve your ability to work with the 3rd-Party ecosystem.

Since the release of N|Solid 4.1.0, we have consolidated NCM into a single product with NCM’s features being pulled into N|Solid Runtime, N|Solid SaaS, and the N|Solid Console for optimal user experience. It also provides alerts and notifications when new vulnerabilities are discovered in modules used by an organization’s applications and helps users quickly identify and remediate any potential security risks.NCM is a valuable tool for organizations that rely on Node.js and open-source modules, helping to ensure that their applications are secure, reliable, and compliant with industry standards and regulations.

NCM now assesses packages based on multiple attributes: security, compliance, risk, and quality. These attributes are combined to generate an overall risk level for each package, providing valuable insights to manage third-party code in your Node.js applications effectively. With NCM’s scoring system, you can:

__Manage acceptable risk levels__: NCM helps you assess the risk associated with third-party packages by providing an overall risk level for each package. This allows you to make informed decisions about the level of risk you are willing to accept in your application.
__Understand security vulnerabilities__: NCM identifies and highlights security vulnerabilities in third-party modules, allowing you to understand the severity of the vulnerabilities and take appropriate actions to address them in your code.
__Manage license and compliance risks__: NCM helps you identify potential license and compliance risks introduced by third-party modules, ensuring that your application adheres to licensing requirements and compliance standards.
__Identify potential risk vectors__: NCM goes beyond known security vulnerabilities and identifies potential risks that may not have surfaced in security vulnerabilities yet. This helps you proactively identify and address potential risks in your code.
__Improve code quality__: NCM provides insights into quality attributes that align with best practices, helping you improve the quality of your code and make it more manageable and secure.

Together, these attributes in NCM’s scoring system (security, compliance, risk, and quality.) provide a comprehensive assessment of third-party packages, enabling you to effectively manage and secure your Node.js applications by addressing security vulnerabilities, managing compliance risks, assessing package risk, and provides insights to improve code quality. Find Out More about ‘Vulnerability Scanning & 3rd-Party Modules Certification’- HERE ???????? nsrc.io/VulnerabilityScanningNS

The Importance of Node.js Application Security

Selecting the right tools and applications for your developer pipeline requires careful consideration of your team’s workflow and project needs. This might involve assessing your tech stack, deployment processes, and the number of steps in your pipeline and identifying areas where guardrails can be implemented to improve security and reliability.

_Image 7 – NCM Criteria
_

Fortunately, numerous tools and applications are available to assist in managing your pipeline and ensuring the security and compliance of your applications. One powerful tool in this regard is NCM (NodeSource Certified Modules). NCM is a comprehensive security, compliance, and curation tool that offers advanced capabilities for managing dependencies in Node.js applications. By integrating NCM into your pipeline, you can effortlessly scan for vulnerabilities, track package dependencies, and ensure compliance with licensing requirements.

NCM enables you to elevate your pipeline to the next level, enhancing your application’s performance, reliability, and security while safeguarding against __SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACKS__. With the consolidation of NCM into N|Solid, you can now seamlessly access these powerful capabilities through the N|Solid Console for a streamlined user experience.

Note: Supply chain attacks are a type of cyber attack that targets the weakest link in a software supply chain. Instead of directly attacking a target, hackers infiltrate a trusted third-party vendor, supplier, or service provider to gain access to their customer’s systems and data. This allows the attackers to distribute malicious code or compromise software updates, which can then infect the entire supply chain and cause widespread damage. Supply chain attacks can be difficult to detect and prevent, making them a growing threat to organizations of all sizes and industries.

The importance of NCM

The consolidation of NCM 2 into N|Solid represents a significant milestone in providing a comprehensive solution for ensuring the security, reliability, and performance of Node.js applications. With features such as:

Projects & Applications Monitoring – https://nsrc.io/ProjectApplicationsMonitoringNS

Process Monitoring – https://nsrc.io/ProcessMonitoringNS

CPU Profiling – https://nsrc.io/CPUProfilingNS

Worker Threads Monitoring – https://nsrc.io/WorkerThreadsNS

Capture Heap Snapshots – https://nsrc.io/HeapSnapshotsNS

Memory Anomaly Detection – https://nsrc.io/MemoryAnomalyNS

Vulnerability Scanning & 3rd party Modules Certification – https://nsrc.io/VulnerabilityScanningNS
HTTP Tracing Support – https://nsrc.io/HTTPTracingNS

Global Alerts & Integrations – https://nsrc.io/GlobalAlertsIntegrationsNS

Distributed Tracing – https://nsrc.io/DistributedTracingNS

Open Telemetry Support – nsrc.io/AIOpsNSolid

SBOM Support – nsrc.io/SBOM-NSolid

Machine Learning Support – nsrc.io/ML-NSolid

N|Solid offers a robust and all-encompassing solution for managing the entire lifecycle of Node.js applications. By incorporating NCM’s powerful capabilities for security, compliance, and curation, N|Solid empowers developers and organizations to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities, track dependencies, and ensure licensing compliance, ultimately elevating the overall performance, reliability, and security of their applications. With N|Solid, organizations can confidently build and deploy Node.js applications with peace of mind, knowing their software is protected against potential risks and supply chain attacks.

Conclusion:

Securing Node.js applications is paramount in today’s software development landscape. With the powerful features of NSolid, including the N|Solid Console and N|Solid Runtime, combined with the cutting-edge security capabilities of NCM, developers can safeguard their Node.js applications with next-generation security measures or simply leaving the maintenance and infrastructure to us by selecting our N|Solid SaaS option. By leveraging the power of NCM in the N|Solid platform, developers can proactively mitigate vulnerabilities and ensure the reliability and stability of their Node.js applications. Embrace the power of NCM in N|Solid today and unleash the full potential of your Node.js applications with advanced security measures.

NodeSource’s Products:

N|Solid Runtime is the Node.js runtime environment with enhanced security, monitoring, and debugging features.

N|Solid Console is a web-based dashboard for managing and monitoring Node.js applications running on N|Solid Runtime.
__N|Solid SaaS__: Benefit from N|Solid’s advanced security and performance features through a cloud-based subscription service, eliminating the need for on-premises installation or maintenance.

NCM is a cutting-edge security feature integrated into the N|Solid platform that provides continuous monitoring, vulnerability scanning, and risk assessment of open-source Node.js packages used in Node.js applications.

To get the best out of Node.js and experience the benefits of its integrated features, including OpenTelemetry support, SBOM integration, and Machine Learning capabilities. ✍️ Sign up for a free trial and see how N|Solid can help you achieve your development and operations goals. #KnowyourNode

The return of ECMAScript 2023 (and Angular)

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#​634 — April 13, 2023

Read on the Web

JavaScript Weekly

The JavaScript Equality Table Game — Minesweeper will feel like a walk in the park after this reminder of the horrors of JavaScript’s ==. If you need to go in depth, Section 7.2.14 of the ECMAScript spec will help, but otherwise? Stick to three equals (===) unless you have a good reason not to.

Reinis Ivanovs

htmx 1.9 Released — htmx (homepage) is an increasingly popular library outside of the JavaScript space as it lets folks use things like WebSockets, SSE, AJAX, and CSS transitions by marking up HTML rather than writing lots of JavaScript. v1.9 adds support for view transitions and generalized inline event handling. The code examples are worth a look – htmx makes a lot possible, with rather little tooling or markup needed.

htmx team

Supercharge AWS S3 Video Streaming with ImageKit’s Video API — Get adaptive bitrate streaming, video optimizations, format conversions, and real-time transformations and watermarking by attaching ImageKit with your AWS S3 bucket.

ImageKit sponsor

The ECMAScript® 2023 Language Spec Steps Forward — After prematurely announcing the progression of the ES2023 spec in February, we can now announce: TC39 has approved the ECMAScript 2023 spec, and while it remains a candidate, it’s now a step closer to eventual ECMA General Assembly approval. The finished proposals list for 2023 now includes Array find from last, hashbang support, Symbols as WeakMap keys, and change Array by copy.

ECMA International

IN BRIEF:

▶️ Angular is back with a vengeance, says Fireship.

Serverless platform AWS Lambda has introduced response streaming on its JS runtime (for now) so you can send response data as it becomes available rather than all at once. (→ Via Serverless Status)

/[]/ A look at a seemingly JS-specific quirk in regular expressions when empty character classes are used.

An analysis of languages used in GitHub pull requests shows JavaScript/TypeScript leading the way with Python just slightly behind. The comments went in lots of odd directions here.

Seven folks at Vue Amsterdam 2023 shared their ▶️ tips on getting started with Vue.js.

▶️ An hour-long chat on the State of Node.js with some leading figures.

Node v18.16.0 (LTS) has been released with backported support for compiling JavaScript code into a single executable app. Node 19’s Ada URL parser also appears.

A striking visual introduction to React and its fundamental concepts.

RELEASES:

Node.js v19.9 (Current)

Puppeteer v19.9 – It’s the week for almost 20s.

pnpm 8.2 – Efficient npm alternative.

Redwood 4.5 – Popular app framework.

Storybook 7.0 – With an official release post this time.

???? Articles & Tutorials

Ranger: Use a Range-Like Syntax for Anything? — const numbers = 1[[…8]], anyone? This is a neat trick for a bit of syntatic sugar, but I’m not sure it would pass the sniff test for most teams. You might find the implementation interesting to check out though. Long may this sort of experimentation continue.

Jon Randy

???? A proposal for JavaScript to get built-in range support is at stage 2.

????  Build and Deploy ‘23: May 3rd – Save the Date! — The ultimate CI/CD virtual conference – best practices and end-user success stories from DevOps experts. Plus, a keynote from Emily Freeman, author of DevOps for Dummies.

Codefresh sponsor

Trying Node’s Built-In Test Runner — In 2022, Node gained an experimental built-in test runner (node:test). It’s going to become stable in the forthcoming Node v20, so it’s a good time to look at how it works and how it compares to other solutions you might already be using.

Gleb Bahmutov

▶  The Right Way To Merge JavaScript Objects — In just one minute, too.

Jack Herrington

Ref vs. Reactive: What to Choose When Using Vue 3 Composition API?

Michael Hoffmann

How to Stream File Uploads to S3 Object Storage from Node.js

Austin Gil

How to Contribute to a Project You Have No Idea About

Michal Warda

???? Code & Tools

Reveal.js 4.5: An HTML Presentation Framework — Brings elegant presentations to anyone with a Web browser. v4.5 was just released with support for jumping to specific slides, a few new themes, and with live reload working with files in subfolders.

Hakim El Hattab

List.js: Add Search, Sort, Filters, and More to Tables and Lists — A handy library for adding search, sort, filters and flexibility to tables, lists or other HTML elements. Want an example? Why, of course.

Jonny Strömberg

????Quokka.js – #1 JavaScript Scratchpad for VS Code — With 2M+ downloads, Quokka.js is the #1 tool for exploring and testing JavaScript/TypeScript. Code runs immediately as you type.

Wallaby.js sponsor

Queue: Async Function Queue with Adjustable Concurrency — Exports a class Queue that implements most of the Array API.

Jesse Tane

Yet Another React Lightbox — Add a lightbox component to your projects “in minutes” – there are several examples to try, as well as a playground with adjustable settings. GitHub repo.

Igor Danchenko

Sandpack 2.6: Component Toolkit for Creating Live Code Editing Experiences — Created by the folks at CodeSandbox, so they surely know what they’re doing in this space. GitHub repo.

CodeSandbox

Easy to Use, Full-Stack Application Monitoring

TelemetryHub sponsor

TS Writer: A Template String Template Engine for Generating Code at Runtime — Rather niche, but aimed at situations where you might need to generate code at runtime in TypeScript.

tinylibs

Minimatch 9.0
↳ Glob matcher library.
     minimatch(“bar.foo”, “*.foo”)

hls.js 1.4
↳ Play HLS in browsers with support for MSE.

Partytown 0.8
↳ Relocate third-party scripts off the main thread.

Plasmo 0.68
↳ “It’s like Next.js for browser extensions”

Obsidian 8.0 – GraphQL, built for Deno.

MUI X 6.1 – React component suite.

TestCafe 2.5 – Automate end-to-end web testing.

Maquette 3.6 – Lightweight virtual DOM library.

Venom 5.0 – WhatsApp bot library.

???? Jobs

Find JavaScript Jobs with Hired — Hired makes job hunting easy-instead of chasing recruiters, companies approach you with salary details up front. Create a free profile now.

Hired

Full Stack JavaScript Engineer @ Emerging Cybersecurity Startup — Small team/big results. Fun + flexible + always interesting. Come build our award-winning, all-in-one cybersecurity platform.

Defendify

????‍???? Got a job listing to share? Here’s how.

Introducing nsuv

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Introducing nsuv

nsuv is a C++ wrapper around libuv with the main goal of supporting compile-time type safety when propagating data.

You can find the open source package here: https://github.com/nodesource/nsuv

Here at NodeSource we are focused on fixing issues for the enterprise. This includes adding functionality and features to Node.js that are useful for enterprise-level deployments but would be difficult to upstream. One is the ability to execute commands remotely on Worker threads without the addition of running the inspector, such as capturing CPU profiles or heap snapshots. Another feature necessary to make Node.js more reliable in production is the ability to record and send metrics without being at the mercy of a busy event loop.

To achieve these, we run a separate thread that receives commands and gathers metrics from each Node.js thread. The locks and data queues in the separate thread are managed by libuv. As the codebase grew, usability issues began to come up, such as remembering the correct type of each void pointer and keeping track of the lifetime of the many shared locks and resources. Our solution was to write a wrapper for libuv to alleviate these problems.

We had a lot of existing libuv code and didn’t want to rewrite everything from scratch. So we wrote a template class library that inherits from each libuv handle or request type and uses the curiously recurring template pattern (CRTP) for inheritance. Doing so made it possible to write a wrapper that serves as a drop-in replacement, allowing for incremental improvements while supplementing the wrapper’s API with what was needed.

N|Solid has a zero-failure tolerance, so none of our code can accidentally terminate your process. One way we do this is to try our best not to perform additional allocations. If an allocation is necessary, it always does with a strong exception guarantee, which is then caught and returned as a libuv error code.

We have also enabled compile time warnings when returned error codes aren’t handled. While developing nsuv, we analyzed many existing C++ projects that use libuv and discovered that most of them assume the state of the application and lack sufficient error handling in case something unexpected occurs. This can be especially painful when working with asynchronous code, but we understand that not everyone requires the same level of caution. It can be disabled by defining NSUV_DISABLE_WUR in your flags.

Getting Started

The following code example shows the execution of a simple libuv timer, and the only change was to turn the uv_timer_t to a nsuv::ns_timer instance while still being able to use the original libuv APIs:

static void timer_cb(uv_timer_t* handle) {
Foo* foo = static_cast<Foo*>(handle->data);
delete foo;
uv_close(reinterpret_cast<uv_handle_t*>(handle), nullptr);
}

static void call_timer() {
ns_timer timer;
Foo* foo = new Foo();

timer.data = foo;
uv_timer_init(uv_default_loop(), &timer);
uv_timer_start(&timer, timer_cb, 1000, 0);
uv_run(uv_default_loop(), UV_RUN_DEFAULT);
}

As you can see, there’s no need to cast timer before being passed to libuv’s timer function since ns_timer is a derived class of uv_timer_t and upcasting is implicit. It offers the first step in converting code to be more type-safe and improve overall usability. Improvements can be made incrementally from here. Below we take advantage of the CRTP and use it to downcast the uv_timer_t to the nsuv counterpart after using libuv’s timer API:

static void timer_cb(uv_timer_t* handle) {
// Downcast the libuv handle to its nsuv counterpart.
ns_timer* timer = ns_timer::cast(handle);
// Convenience method to retrieve and cast data.
Foo* foo = timer->get_data<Foo>();

delete foo;
timer->close();
}

While this is a good first step, it still requires we know what the data value should be cast to. The call to get_data() only serves as a convenience method for easier casting.

Passing Data

One of the most painful parts of working with libuv was ensuring we didn’t accidentally cast a void pointer to the wrong type from a specific queue. While this could be verified by hand, having the compiler tell us if we did it wrong would have been more reassuring.

To accomplish this, we wrapped libuv in a way that allows any function that takes a callback to be passed an arbitrary pointer. That pointer is then passed along as an argument in the callback’s parameters. Preventing us from needing to use the uv_handle_t::data property and ensuring the callback always has the correct pointer type.

Below we have fully converted the previous code to use nsuv. As you can see, the pointer that would have been stored in the data parameter can now be passed to the method, making it available as an argument in the callback.

static void call_timer() {
ns_timer timer;
Foo* foo = new Foo();
int r;

r = timer.init(uv_default_loop());
//check r
r = timer.start(+[](ns_timer* handle, Foo* foo) {
delete foo;
handle->close();
}, 1000, 0, foo);
// check r

uv_run(uv_default_loop(), UV_RUN_DEFAULT);
}

For the sake of the example, a C++ lambda function was used. Remember that when passing a lambda function, it needs to be converted to a plain old function pointer using the + operator.

Also notice that we are assigning and handling all return values from each call. As mentioned above, the compiler will warn us if we do not check each call’s return codes. For simplicity of future examples, the return value will be assigned but not include a comment that it needs to be checked.

Locks

Because of all the communication between threads, mutexes were heavily used. To make things simpler, we added a couple of APIs for convenience. The first API of note is that init() accepts an optional boolean value. If true is passed in, the mutex is automatically destroyed when the destructor is called. The other was to add an API for scoped locking.

static void try_mutex() {
ns_mutex mutex;
// The optional boolean argument sets if the mutex should be
// automatically destroyed in the destructor.
int r = mutex.init(true);
// Convenience class to create scoped locks. Accepts either a
// pointer or reference.
{
ns_mutex::scoped_lock lock(mutex);
}
}

Having a mutex call destroy() in the destructor was kept false by default to maintain parity with the libuv API and prevent surprises while migrating to nsuv.

Example Usage

At first, we only implemented the libuv APIs that were necessary for us to use internally, but since deciding to open source the library we have begun to add as much of the remaining libuv APIs as possible. But despite not having yet ported the entire libuv API, it’s still possible to take advantage of what has been done. The following is an example from a test that includes the checks to demonstrate how class instances are being passed around.

#include “nsuv-inl.h”

using namespace nsuv;

ns_tcp client;
ns_tcp incoming;
ns_tcp server;
ns_connect<ns_tcp> connect_req;
ns_write<ns_tcp> write_req;

static void alloc_cb(ns_tcp* handle, size_t, uv_buf_t* buf) {
static char slab[1024];
assert(handle == &incoming);

buf->base = slab;
buf->len = sizeof(slab);
}

static void read_cb(ns_tcp* handle, ssize_t, const uv_buf_t*) {
assert(handle == &incoming);

handle->close();
client.close();
server.close();
}

static void write_cb(ns_write<ns_tcp>* req, int) {
assert(req == &write_req);
// Retrieve a reference to the uv_buf_t array as a std::vector.
assert(req->bufs().size() == 2);
}

static void connection_cb(ns_tcp* server, int) {
int r;
r = incoming.init(server->get_loop());
r = server->accept(&incoming);
r = incoming.read_start(alloc_cb, read_cb);
}

static void connect_cb(ns_connect<ns_tcp>* req, int, char* data) {
static char bye_ctr[] = “BYE”;
uv_buf_t buf1 = uv_buf_init(data, strlen(data));
uv_buf_t buf2 = uv_buf_init(bye_ctr, strlen(bye_ctr));
// Write to the handle attached to this request and pass along data
// by constructing a std::vector.
int r = req->handle()->write(&write_req, { buf1, buf2 }, write_cb);
}

static void do_listen() {
static char hello_cstr[] = “HELLO”;
struct sockaddr_in addr_in;
struct sockaddr* addr;
int r;

r = uv_ip4_addr(“127.0.0.1”, 9999, &addr_in);
addr = reinterpret_cast<struct sockaddr*>(&addr_in);

// Server setup.
r = server.init(uv_default_loop());
r = server.bind(addr, 0);
r = server.listen(1, connection_cb);

// Client connection.
r = client.init(uv_default_loop());
r = client.connect(&connect_req, addr, connect_cb, hello_cstr);

uv_run(uv_default_loop(), UV_RUN_DEFAULT);
}

The request types ns_write and ns_connect are also used in the above example. They inherit from uv_write_t and uv_connect_t respectively, and can be upcast and downcast the same way as handles. Each request type API is templated to identify which handle is being used and can return the correct handle type.

While the write() method does accept a uv_buf_t[] array, we’ve also added the ability to pass in a std::vector of buffers for ease of use. Once the request is complete, the list of written buffers can be retrieved via the ns_write::buf() API as a reference to the std::vector that’s stored internally.

Conclusion

One goal when creating nsuv was to reduce cognitive load by mimicking the libuv API naming and structure while adding safety features offered by C++. We’ve made it easy to transition existing projects to nsuv. By open-sourcing nsuv, we hope to give developers more confidence that their code will behave as expected when expected.

There is near zero runtime overhead using nsuv. The template function proxy pattern used can be completely optimized out by modern compilers. Combining that with the ability to enforce type checks at compile time, I won’t be using libuv in C++ without nsuv going forward.

Using nsuv is as simple as including the two header files from the project repository. We are still working on getting complete coverage of the libuv API and hope the community can help us decide what to work on next. We are also working on porting all applicable tests from libuv to nsuv, which can serve as usage examples. We hope that you’ll find nsuv as useful as we have.

NodeSource has delivered Node.js fresh to your Linux system via your package manager within hours, minutes, days, or weeks. For NodeSource, sustaining the community is essential because we want to support more people using Linux to have Node.js in production.

Also, we are looking for more community involvement in the project. Help will be appreciated! So if you have ideas or solutions or want to help us continue supporting open source, you can contribute to this GitHub Repo.

Continue the conversation with NodeSource here:
– Twitter
– LinkedIn
– Github
As always, the best place to contact us is via our website or [email protected]

Ready for more?

If you are looking for NodeSource’s Enterprise-grade Node.js platform, N|Solid, please visit https://downloads.nodesource.com/. For detailed information on installing and using N|Solid, please refer to the N|Solid User Guide.

N|Solid v4.9.2 is now available

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NodeSource is excited to announce N|Solid v4.9.2 which contains the following changes:

General stability improvements and bug fixes
Node.js v14.21.3 (LTS): Includes a Node.js security release captured in Node.js v14.21.3 (LTS).
Node.js v16.19.1 (LTS): Includes a Node.js security release captured in Node.js v16.19.1 (LTS).
Node.js v18.14.1 (LTS): Includes a Node.js security release captured in Node.js v18.14.1 (LTS).
Support for a new action in N|Solid saved views to capture traces automatically.

IMPORTANT: N|Solid v4.9.1 contains a Node.js security release!

For detailed information on installing and using N|Solid, please refer to the N|Solid User Guide.

Changes

N|Solid v4.9.2 contains the following changes:

General stability improvements and bug fixes
Node.js v14.21.3 (LTS): Includes a Rebase of N|Solid on Node.js v14.21.3 (LTS).
Node.js v16.19.1 (LTS): Includes a Rebase of N|Solid on Node.js v16.19.1 (LTS).
Node.js v18.14.2 (LTS): Includes a Rebase of N|Solid on Node.js v18.14.2 (LTS).

IMPORTANT: N|Solid v4.9.1 contains a Node.js security release. This release includes patches for these vulnerabilities:

CVE-2023-23918: Node.js Permissions policies can be bypassed via process.mainModule (High)
CVE-2023-23919: Node.js OpenSSL error handling issues in nodejs crypto library (Medium)
CVE-2023-23936: Fetch API in Node.js did not protect against CRLF injection in host headers (Medium)
CVE-2023-24807: Regular Expression Denial of Service in Headers in Node.js fetch API (Low)
CVE-2023-23920: Node.js insecure loading of ICU data through ICU_DATA environment variable (Low).
With the new action in N|Solid saved views, you can activate the tracing automatically when one or more processes cross over performance thresholds or match query parameters that you set.

N|Solid

N|Solid v4.9.2 Fermium ships with Node.js v14.21.3.

N|Solid v4.9.2 Gallium ships with Node.js v16.19.1.

N|Solid v4.9.2 Hydrogen ships with Node.js v18.14.1.

Node.js

The Node.js 14 Fermium LTS release line will continue to be supported until April 30, 2023.
The Node.js 16 Gallium LTS release line will continue to be supported until September 11, 2023.
The Node.js 18 Hydrogen LTS release line will continue to be supported until April 30, 2025.

Supported Operating Systems for N|Solid Runtime and N|Solid Console

Please note that The N|Solid Runtime is supported on the following operating systems:

Windows:

Windows 10
Microsoft Windows Server 1909 Core
Microsoft Windows Server 2012
Microsoft Windows Server 2008

macOS:
macOS 10.11 and newer

RPM based 64-bit Linux distributions (x86_64):

Amazon Linux AMI release 2015.09 and newer
RHEL7 / CentOS 7 and newer
Fedora 32 and newer

DEB based 64-bit Linux distributions (x86_64, arm64 and armhf):

Ubuntu 16.04 and newer
Debian 9 (stretch) and newer

Alpine
Alpine 3.3 and newer

Download the latest version of N|Solid

You can download the latest version of N|Solid via http://accounts.nodesource.com or visit https://downloads.nodesource.com/ directly.

New to N|Solid?

If you’ve never tried N|Solid, this is a great time to do so. N|Solid is a fully compatible Node.js runtime that has been enhanced to address the needs of the Enterprise. N|Solid provides meaningful insights into the runtime process and the underlying systems. Click ???? [HERE]

AIOps Observability: Going Beyond Traditional APM

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AIOps is an emerging technology that applies machine learning and analytics techniques to IT operations. AIOps enables IT teams to leverage advanced algorithms to identify performance issues, predict outages, and optimize system performance. Nodesource sees significant advantages for developers and teams to increase software quality by leveraging AIOPS. We have extended our platform’s (N|Solid) observability capabilities to include AIOps, enabling developers to leverage advanced machine learning and analytics techniques to optimize their Node.js applications.

Our N|Solid platform provides the most advanced visibility into Node.js applications, enabling developers to quickly identify performance issues, detect security vulnerabilities, and troubleshoot errors. N|Solid achieves this level of observability through real-time performance monitoring, comprehensive metrics, and detailed instrumentation of Node.js applications.

Last year, we integrated OpenTelemetry into our runtime and were nearing the release of an extension of this layer into our console. This advancement will further extend our platform to support AIOps. Santiago Gimeno, a Senior Architect, sums up our vision of the integration with OTel (Open Telemetry) and N|Solid:

“In today’s world, where applications are becoming more complex and distributed, having a good observability solution is more important than ever. The emergence of OpenTelemetry as the de-facto standard for observability is key. It allows application developers to select solutions that adapt better to their needs. Even more, it allows for healthy competition between observability solution vendors. We support this approach and continue to take steps to ensure N|Solid stays compliant with the OpenTelemetry specification, so everyone can use what we believe is the best observability solution for Node.js.”

Key differences between an APM and Observability

APM (Application Performance Management) and observability are both methods of monitoring and managing the performance and health of software applications, but there are key differences between the two:

Scope: APM is focused on monitoring the performance of applications, while observability is a more comprehensive approach that includes monitoring the infrastructure and application stack, as well as the performance of individual services.

Metrics: APM typically relies on predefined metrics and thresholds to identify performance issues, while observability takes a more flexible approach to collect a wide range of data, including logs, metrics, and traces.

Root cause analysis: APM is designed to quickly identify the root cause of performance issues, often through alerting and automated remediation, while observability takes a more holistic approach that emphasizes the need to understand the relationships between different parts of the system to identify and fix issues.

Proactivity: APM is often reactive, focusing on identifying and fixing issues as they arise, while observability is more proactive, focusing on continuous monitoring and analysis to identify potential issues before they become critical.

Tooling: APM is often built around specific tools and technologies designed to monitor and analyze application performance, while observability is more flexible and adaptable, focusing on integrating a wide range of tools and technologies to provide a comprehensive system view.

You need to have both; they are important to monitoring and managing the performance and health of software applications.

This is why N|Solid is not only an APM but also has observability within its functionalities. And now, with the implementation of ML and SBOM, it goes beyond APM and supports the growing discipline of AIOps.

AIOps: Fundamental concept in Modern IT Operations

AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT operations) is an approach to IT operations that leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate and optimize IT tasks. AIOps aims to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations by leveraging the vast amount of data generated by various IT systems and applications.

Observability refers to IT teams’ ability to observe and understand the behavior of complex systems in real-time, using a combination of monitoring, logging, and analytics tools.

AIOps and observability enable IT teams to proactively monitor and manage IT systems, applications, and infrastructure, allowing them to identify and resolve issues quickly. AIops uses machine learning and AI algorithms to identify patterns in large amounts of data, while observability provides the visibility and context needed to understand the behavior of complex systems.

Modern Observability in Place

Support for open-source tracing tools and standards like OpenTelemetry facilitates team collaboration in resolving issues. Open Telemetry is the second most active CNCF project, behind only Kubernetes, showcasing its importance to the industry.

_Image Twitter Michael Haberman @hab_mic
_

Following this standard, N|Solid (since N|Solid 4.8.0) supports OTEL:
– Implements the OpenTelemetry TraceAPI, allowing users to use the de-facto standard API to instrument their code.
– It supports using many instrumentation modules available in the Open Telemetry ecosystem. It supports exporting traces using the Open Telemetry Protocol(OTLP) over HTTP.
– With this feature is now possible to send N|Solid runtime monitoring information (metrics and traces) to backends supporting the Open Telemetry standard like multiple APMS (Dynatrace, Datadog, Newrelic, etc.).

Additionally, we included OTEL in the ‘APM performance dashboard,’ an open-source tool we released to the community, enabling developers and organizations to understand the impact of APM tools’ performance.

_Img APM’s Performance Dashboard View
_

Recent enhancements to the tool include the following:

Updated the data with N|Solid 4.8.0 -> 16.16.0 and 14.20.0
Added a few new tests: especially with different solutions for graphql.
Added more APMs: opentelemetry, AppDynamics

Added testing of N|Solid against Datadog, Dynatrace, and NewRelic.

Do you want to implement OTel in your Node.js application? ????

Enriching telemetry data with metadata is an important aspect of observability, and OpenTelemetry provides a flexible and extensible framework for doing so. However, there can be challenges in implementing this in practice, especially when dealing with multiple tools and technologies.

One approach to addressing this challenge is to use a centralized configuration management tool to ensure consistency in metadata enrichment across your observability stack. Please review the following articles to give you an accurate guide to implementing Opentelemetry in your project.

Enhance Observability with Opentelemetry tracing – Part 1

Instrument your Nodejs Applications with Open Source Tools – Part 2

However, if you want this implementation out of the box and have other useful features, we invite you to try N|Solid.

Conclusion

N|Solid Supports OpenTelemetry Features, Integrates SBOM and ML at its Core.

By supporting OpenTelemetry features, N|Solid provides seamless integration with this framework, enabling customers to understand their applications, infrastructure behavior, and performance. This integration enhances the ability of developers and operators to troubleshoot issues, identify bottlenecks, and optimize application performance.

N|Solid’s integration of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) provides a comprehensive list of all software components used in an application, including open-source libraries and dependencies, which helps organizations to mitigate security risks and ensure compliance with regulations. By integrating SBOM at its core, N|Solid provides organizations with an efficient and reliable way to manage the security and compliance of their software applications.

Finally, N|Solid’s integration of machine learning (ML) at its core is another critical feature that helps to identify patterns and anomalies in data, allowing developers and operators to gain insights that are not easily detectable using traditional monitoring tools. This integration of ML at the core of N|Solid enables organizations to improve the overall reliability, performance, and security of their applications and services.

N|Solid’s support of OpenTelemetry features, integration of SBOM, and integration of ML at its core provides developers and operators with a comprehensive set of tools to manage and optimize their applications and infrastructure, making N|Solid a valuable platform in the modern software development and operations landscape.

Ready to connect?

If you want to know more about our APM’S Benchmark project and get the most out of your Node.js application, read this incredible article by our VP of engineering, Adrián Estrada, ‘In-depth analysis of the APMs performance cost in Node.js.‘

We also invite you to ????️ Use the ✨APM’s Performance Dashboard✨here:
???? Read the full blog post here: https://nsrc.io/4xFaster
???? Contribute here: https://github.com/nodesource/node-APMs-benchmark
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or through this form.

Experience the Benefits of N|Solid’s Integrated Features
Sign up for a Free Trial Today

To get the best out of Node.js and experience the benefits of its integrated features, including OpenTelemetry support, SBOM integration, and machine learning capabilities. Sign up for a free trial and see how N|Solid can help you achieve your development and operations goals. #KnowyourNode

Bringing JavaScript to WebAssembly

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#​625 — February 10, 2023

Read on the Web

It looked quiet at first but wow, what an epic week this turned out to be. There’s a lot to chew on here, and we even have a variety of bonus items at the very end of this issue. Enjoy!
__
Your editor, Peter Cooper

JavaScript Weekly

Speeding Up the JS Ecosystem: It’s ESLint’s Turn — Last year we featured an article from the same author about how he was finding, and fixing, low-hanging performance fruit in popular JavaScript projects. He’s back, and he’s found a lot of potential for savings in ESLint this time.

Marvin Hagemeister

The Future (and the Past) of the Web is Server Side Rendering — It’s fair to say the Deno folks have some skin in this game, but nonetheless this is a neat brief history of server-side rendering and why they feel it’s the right approach for modern web development.

Andy Jiang (Deno)

Monitoring Your NestJS Application with AppSignal — With AppSignal, you can monitor your NestJS app with ease and rely on OpenTelemetry to handle third-party instrumentations. AppSignal even provides helper functions to help you build comprehensive custom instrumentation. A box of 🍪 included!

AppSignal sponsor

Ten Web Development Trends in 2023 — Following the State of JS survey results Robin takes a considered look at new web dev trends that we should be paying attention to this year, and why they matter.

Robin Wieruch

Bringing JavaScript to WebAssembly for Shopify Functions — As much as this is focused on a specific use case at Shopify, this is a fascinating look at how they’re integrating JavaScript and WebAssembly under tight constraints. They also talk about Javy, a JS to WebAssembly toolchain being built at Shopify that lets you run JS code on a WASM-embedded JS runtime.

Surma (Shopify)

Google Touts Web-Based Machine Learning with TensorFlow.js

Richard MacManus (The New Stack)

IN BRIEF:

🎉 Time to celebrate — a recent survey allegedly found that JavaScript applications ‘have fewer flaws’ than Java and .NET ones. So there you go.

Honeypot’s highly anticipated ▶️ React.js documentary drops later today – it’ll probably be out by the time you read this.

Vanilla List is a directory of ‘vanilla’ JavaScript controls and plugins.

▶️ Evan You tells us what to expect in 2023 from Vue.js.

The Scala.js project is celebrating its ten year anniversary – it’s now a mature way to build Web projects using Scala, if you prefer.

📅 Vue.js Live is a JavaScript event taking place both in London and online on May 12 & 15. From the same folks as the also forthcoming JSNation conference.

A history of criticisms levelled at React.

RELEASES:

Eleventy / 11ty 2.0
↳ Popular Node.js static site generator.

pnpm 7.27 – The efficient package manager.

RxDB 14.0 – Offline-first, reactive database.

📒 Articles & Tutorials

Design Patterns in TypeScript — OO-inspired patterns aren’t for everyone or every use case, but this is a fantastic catalog of examples, complete with diagrams and explanations, if you need to learn to tell apart factory methods from decorators, facades, or proxies.

Refactoring Guru

Resumable React: How To Use React Inside Qwik — Building React apps without ever loading React in the user’s browser? “Sounds too good to be true? Let’s see how this works.”

Yoav Ganbar

Did You Know That You’re Already a Distributed Systems Developer?

Temporal Technologies sponsor

Build a Hacker News Client using Alpine.js — Alpine.js is a thin and elegant reactivity library that lets you add dynamic functionality to your site directly in markup. This is a short and sweet practical example of what you can quickly do with it.

Salai Vedha Viradhan

▶  TypeScript Speedrun: A Crash Course for Beginners — If you want to pick up TypeScript and would find a video guide useful, this is for you. Matt has become well known recently for his educational TypeScript tweets and videos, and this is another good one that flies through the basics. (23 minutes.)

Matt Pocock

Using Notion as a Headless CMS with Nuxt

Trent Brew

The Options API vs Composition API in Vue.js

Charles Allotey

🛠 Code & Tools

Bookmarklet Editor: Easily Work on JavaScript Bookmarklets — Useful because who can remember the exact syntax for a bookmarklet? 🤔 This also can instantly convert code to and from bookmarklet form and includes some examples in the help section (click the big ? to get all the details).

Marek Gibney

Breakpoints and console.log Is the Past, Time Travel Is the Future — 15x faster JavaScript debugging than with breakpoints and console.log, now with support for Vitest.

Wallaby.js sponsor

Yup 1.0: Super Simple Object Schema Validation — Define a schema, transform a value to match, assert the shape of an existing value, or both. Very extensive docs here.

Jason Quense

Material React Table: A Full-Featured React Table Component — Built upon Material UI 5 and TanStack Table 8. The docs include lots of interactive examples.

Kevin Van Cott

BlockNote: Notion-Style Block-Based Text Editor — Built on top of Prosemirror and Tiptap, this is for you if you like the way the Notion note-taking service’s text editor feels. There’s a live demo.

Yousef

TresJS: Build 3D Experiences with Vue.js — Create 3D scenes with Vue components and Three.js. Think React-three-fiber but Vue flavored.

Alvaro Sabu

depngn: Find Out if Dependencies Support a Given Node.js Version — A CLI tool that establishes whether or not the dependencies in your package.json will work against a specified version of Node.

OmbuLabs

Open-Source JS Form Libraries to Automate Your Form Workflow — Self-host SurveyJS to configure and modify multiple forms, convert them to fillable PDF files, and analyze collected data in interactive dashboards.

SurveyJS sponsor

Lawnmower: Build VR Scenes with Custom HTML Tags — A web component library that leans on Three.js and aims “to make building a basic VR website as easy to make as your first HTML site”.

Gareth Marland

Electron 23.0 Released — The popular cross platform JavaScript, HTML + CSS desktop app framework gets bumped up to Node 18.12.1, Chromium 110, and V8 11.0. Windows 7/8/8.1 support has also been dropped, so we might start to see those versions of Windows lose the support of a lot of Electron based apps soon.

Electron Core Team

Run: Run User-Provided Code in a Web Worker

SLASHD Analytics

💻 Jobs

Software Engineer (Backend) — Join our “kick ass” team. Our software team operates from 17 countries and we’re always looking for more exceptional engineers.

Sticker Mule

Find JavaScript Jobs with Hired — Hired makes job hunting easy-instead of chasing recruiters, companies approach you with salary details up front. Create a free profile now.

Hired

QUICK RELEASES:

vue-easytable 2.23
↳ A data table/grid control for Vue.js. (Demo.)

React-Custom-Scroll 5.0
↳ Customize the browser scroll bar. (Demo.)

react-jsonschema-form 5.1
↳ Component to build Web forms from JSON Schema.

AlaSQL.js 3.1
↳ JavaScript-based SQL database.

jest-puppeteer 7.0
↳ Run tests using Jest & Puppeteer.

MDX 2.3
↳ Markdown for the component era.

🎁 The Bonus Round

✈️ Watching someone wrestle with Python and JavaScript to fly (virtual) planes with Microsoft Flight Simulator tickled me a lot.

A beautiful WebGL2-based fluid simulation. It’s even happy on mobile. Pretty!

Go-like channels in 10 lines of JavaTypeScript..?

🐦 Misko Hevery: “useSignal() is the future of web frameworks and is a better abstraction than useState(), which is showing its age.” (source)

Mike Pennisi asks: when is an object property not a property?

Do you use Postgres at all? Check out Postgres Weekly – one of our sister newsletters. So much is going on in the Postgres space lately and it’s a great way to keep up.

Why document.write() is bad

Posted on by

#​622 — January 20, 2023

Read on the Web

JavaScript Weekly

Why Not document.write()? — Many moons ago, document.write was a mainstay of client-side JavaScript code, but it’s long been considered a bad practice – why? Harry digs in, noting that it “guarantees both a blocking fetch and a blocking execution, which holds up the parser for far longer than necessary”.

Harry Roberts

New: The WebAssembly JavaScript Promise Integration API — A technical explanation from the V8 team on a new API to let WebAssembly apps bridge the synchronous / asynchronous gap of expectations around external functionality (consider that many apps are written synchronously, but modern Web APIs are usually asynchronous). JSPI helps bridge both worlds and can be tested via a flag in Chrome.

McCabe, Michaud, Rezvov, Dahl / V8 Team

Break the Programming Mold with Dependency Injection — Keep your code on the cutting edge with dependency injection in JavaScript. Check out Snyk’s guide that gives a breakdown of what dependency injection is, when you should use it, and what popular JavaScript frameworks it’s implemented.

Snyk sponsor

Why Is My Jest Suite So Slow? — Jest is known for its speed and simplicity so the author was surprised at how quickly his team’s test suite was slowing down. This is a write up of the ensuing investigation along with the improvements that slashed test running time.

Steven Lemon

Bun v0.5 Released — Bun is another JavaScript runtime taking the world by storm and a level of Node compatibility has been baked in from the start. v0.5 adds support for node:readline, workspaces, a node:dns shim, and network socket creation support such that more Node.js-based database libraries work out of the box.

Ashcon Partovi

IN BRIEF:

The ▶️ latest episode of the JS Party podcast tackles ‘the rise and fall’ of JavaScript frameworks and the modern trend towards smaller ones.

The folks at NodeSource have put together a top 10 list of Node open-source projects ‘to keep an eye on’ in 2023.

Aurelia 2 is now in beta.

RELEASES:

⭐️ esbuild 0.17.0
↳ Popular bundler. Note that this is a key release with backwards incompatible changes.

Inertia.js 1.0
↳ Build SPAs for any backend.

React Native 0.71

Remix 1.10.0
↳ Popular full stack framework.

📒 Articles & Tutorials

🎨  Building an Accessible Theme Picker — An attractively presented, easy to follow tutorial for a handy site feature.

Sarah L. Fossheim

Fixing a Memory Leak in a Production Node.js App — Kent encountered a variety of weird memory and CPU usage spikes in his Node-powered app and decided to figure out what was going on. This post walks through his complete journey, with plenty of side problems encountered along the way, before discovering the root cause was where he least expected it.

Kent C Dodds

Build a Mobile-Responsive Telehealth Pager App Using Stream’s Chat API — Build a responsive chat app with emojis/reactions, built-in GIF support, ability to edit/delete messages, direct & group chat, and more.

Stream sponsor

📊  A Beginner’s Guide to Chrome Tracing — For when you want to go deeper than the Performance tab. With tracing, you can record what a browser is up to far behind the scenes.

Nolan Lawson

Handling Errors Like a Pro in TypeScript — “Learn the design pattern I use to handle errors and write cleaner code.”

Kolby Sisk

A Beginner’s Guide to async/await with Examples

James Hibbard

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting with Vue 3

Fotis Adamakis

🛠 Code & Tools

RoughNotation: Cute Animated ‘Rough’ Text Annotations — Uses Rough.js (itself a project worth checking out) to get a hand-drawn look. Lots of nice interactive examples on the page showing a variety of annotation styles (boxes, underlines, circles..)

Preet Shihn

Free Website Speed Test: Does Your Site Meet Google’s Core Web Vitals? — Get an in-depth technical analysis of your site and learn how to make it fast. Rank higher in Google & deliver great UX.

DebugBear sponsor

Modern Errors: Handle Errors in a Simple, Stable, Consistent Way — Create error classes, wrap or aggregate errors, or use one of several plugins to do things like print bug reporting info, print stack traces, or more. Happy in both Node and the browser.

ehmicky

Shifty: A Small, Fast Tweening Engine — All it does is tweening. It’s a low level animation solution that you can integrate into any rendering mechanism of your choice. The examples here demonstrate it well as it can be used for ‘animating’ things in an unconventional sense. GitHub repo.

Jeremy Kahn

Barba.js: For Smooth Visual Transitions Between Pages — You certainly can’t say the project’s homepage doesn’t show off all of its features! For such a dramatic set of effects, things feel smooth and.. surprisingly tolerable 😁 GitHub repo.

De Rosa, Michel, et al.

Rete.js 1.5: A Framework for Visual Programming — Create a node-based editor in the browser and apply logic. Check out these demos on CodePen. GitHub repo.

Vitaliy Stoliarov

Don’t Let Your Issue Tracker Be a Four-Letter Word. Use Shortcut

Shortcut (formerly Clubhouse.io) sponsor

gpu-io: GPU-Accelerated Computing Library — for physics simulations and other mathematical calculations. A neat look at the power of WebGL. Several examples.

Amanda Ghassaei

Chart.js 4.2
↳ Simple Canvas-based charts. (Samples.)

Serialize JavaScript 6.0.1
↳ Serialize JS to a JSON superset.

axios-retry 3.4
↳ Axios plugin that retries failed requests.

Axios 1.2.3 – Popular HTTP client library.

Commander.js 10.0 – Node.js CLIs made easy.

Mineflayer 4.7 – JS API for Minecraft bots.

Wretch 2.4 – Fetch API wrapper with niceties.

💻 Jobs

Developer Relations Manager — Join the CKEditor team to build community around an Open Source project used by millions of users around the world 🚀

CKEditor

Find JavaScript Jobs with Hired — Create a profile on Hired to connect with hiring managers at growing startups and Fortune 500 companies. It’s free for job-seekers.

Hired

11 Features in Node.js 18 you need to try

Posted on by Simon Helberg

Node.js 18 LTS is now available. What’s new?

Node.js 18 was released on the 19th of April this year. You can read more in the official blog post release or in the OpenJS Blog announcement. The community couldn’t be more excited!

Here at NodeSource,releases are a big deal. As a team of experts, enthusiasts, and core contributors to the open-source project, we love seeing the progress of Node! We are also one of the primary distributors of the runtime and have been since version 0.x (2014).

Developers download and use our binaries worldwide for their production environments (over 100m a year and growing!). We are incredibly proud to support this important piece of the Node ecosystem in addition to building and supporting customers on our Node.js platform – N|Solid.

“If you use Linux, we recommend using a NodeSource installer.” – From the NPM Documentation

If you want to lend a hand, we welcome your ideas or solutions contact us, or if you would like to help us continue supporting open source, you can contribute with an issue here.

Overall, the community is looking forward to this release with many new features and other benefits in addition to the official release earlier this year that included:

Security: Upgrading to OpenSSL 3.0

APIs: Fetch API is Promise based, providing a cleaner and more concise syntax.

If you are interested in thinking about the future of Node, we recommend checking out The next-10 group. They are doing some great work thinking about the strategic direction for the next 10 years of Node.js. Their technical priorities are:

Modern HTTP, WebAssembly, and Types.
ECMAScript modules and Observability

_OpenJS Collaborator Summit 2022
_

But now I’m sure you want to get into the changes in v18. What has improved, and what are the new features? That’s what you’re here for 😉. So let us explain 👇

Hydrogen. What is it?

The codename for this release is ‘Hydrogen’. Support for Node.js 18 will last until April 2025. The name comes from the periodic table, and they have been used in alphabetical order (Argon, Boron, Carbon, Dubnium, Erbium…) 🤓 Read more in StackOverflow.

LTS?

According to the Node.js blog, the “LTS version guarantees that the critical bugs will be fixed for a total of 30 months and Production applications should only use Active LTS, or Maintenance LTS releases”. – https://nodejs.dev/en/about/releases/

In short, it focuses on stability and being a more reliable application after allowing a reasonable time to receive feedback from the community and testing its implementation at any scale.

_Nodejs Releases Screenshot 2022
_

How do I know what version of Node and LTS I have?

You can easily do it by typing in your console:

$ node –version

Run the following to retrieve the name of the LTS release you are using:

$ node -p process.release.lts

_Note: _ The previous property only exists if the release is an LTS. Otherwise, it returns nothing.

If you want to be aware of the release planning in the Node.js community, you can check here: Node.js Release Schedule.

What’s new in Node.js 18?

Contributors are constantly working to improve the runtime, introduce more features, and improve developer experience and usability. Today as the worldwide community uses JS for developing API-driven web applications and serverless cloud development, the changes in this new LTS version are important to understand.

In honor of the number 11 (__#funfact__ Undici means ‘eleven’ in Italian), we decided to make our top 11 Node.js 18 features:

Fetch API
🧪- – watch
🧪 OpenSSL 3 Support
🧪 node:test module
Prefix-only core Modules
🧪 Web Streams API
Other Global APIs: Blob and BrodcastChannel.
V8 Version 10.1
Toolchain and Compiler Upgrades
HTTP Timeouts
Undici Library

The idea of this blog post is to relevel the functionalities one by one, so let’s start:

Feature 1: Native Fetch API in Node.js 18

Finally, v18 provides native fetch functionality in Node.js. This is a standardized web API for conducting HTTP or other types of network requests. Previously Node.js did not support it by default. Because JavaScript is utilized in so many areas, this is fantastic news for the entire ecosystem.

Example:

Feature 2:–watch

Using –watch, your application will automatically restart when an imported file is changed. Just like nodemon. And you can use –watch-path to specify which path should be observed.

Also, these flags cannot be combined with –check, –eval, –interactive, or when used in REPL (read–eval–print loop) mode. It just won’t work.

You can now use Node Watch index on your file name to start watching your files without having to install anything.

Feature 3: OpenSSL 3 Support

OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of, among other things, SSL and TLS protocols for securing communication.

One key feature of OpenSSL 3.0 is the new FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) module. FIPS is a set of US government requirements for governing cryptographic usage in the public sector.

More information is available in the OpenSSL3 blog post.

Feature 4: The Experimental node:test

The node:test module facilitates the creation of JavaScript tests that report results in TAP (Test Anything Protocol) format. The TAP output is extensively used and makes the output easier to consume.

import test from node:test

This module is only available under the node:scheme.
Read more in Node.js Docs

This test runner is still in development and is not meant to replace other complete alternatives such as Jest or Mocha, but it provides a quick way to execute a test suite without additional third-party libraries. The test runner supports features like subtests, test skipping, callback tests, etc.

node:test and –test

node:assert

The following is an example of how to use the new test runner.

More information may be found in the Node.js API docs.

Feature 5: Prefix-only core Modules

A new way to ‘import’ modules that leverages a ‘node:’ prefix, which makes it immediately evident that the modules are from Node.js core

To learn more about this functionality, we invite you to read Colin Ihrig‘s article Node.js 18 Introduces Prefix-Only Core Modules.

Feature 6: Experimental Web Streams API

A Web Streams API is a set of streams API. Also experimental, it allows JavaScript to access streams of data received over the network programmatically and process them as desired. This means Stream APIs are now available on the global scope. This would help send the data packets in readable and writable streams.

Methods available are as follows,

ReadableStream

ReadableStreamDefaultReader

ReadableStreamBYOBReader

ReadableStreamBYOBRequest

ReadableByteStreamController

ReadableStreamDefaultController

TransformStream

TransformStreamDefaultController

WritableStream

WritableStreamDefaultWriter

WritableStreamDefaultController

ByteLengthQueuingStrategy

CountQueuingStrategy

TextEncoderStream

TextDecoderStream

CompressionStream

DecompressionStream

Feature 7: Other Global APIs

The following APIs in the Node v18 upgrade are exposed on the global scope: Blob and BroadcastChannel.

Feature 8: V8 Version 10.1

Node.js runs with the V8 engine from the Chromium open-source browser. This engine has been upgraded to version 10.1, which is part of the recent update in Chromium 101.

New array methods for finding the last element and index of an array. Array methods findLast and findLastIndex are now available.
Internationalization support: Intl.Locale and the Intl.supportedValuesOf functions.
Improving the performance of class fields and private class methods.
The data format of the v8.serialize function has changed (No compatible with earlier versions of Node.js.)

Keep an eye out here.

Feature 9: Toolchain and Compiler Upgrades

Node.js always provides pre-built binaries for various platforms. For every latest release, toolchains are evaluated and elevated whenever required. Node.js provides pre-built binaries for several different platforms. For each major release, the minimum toolchains are assessed and raised where appropriate.

Pre-built binaries for Linux are now built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 and are compatible with Linux distributions based on Glibc 2.28 or later, for example, Debian 10, RHEL 8, Ubuntu 20.04.
Pre-built binaries for macOS now require macOS 10.15 or later.
For AIX, the minimum supported architecture has been raised from Power 7 to Power 8.

Note: Build-time user-land snapshot(Experimental)

Users can build a Node.js binary with a custom V8 startup using the
–-node-snapshot-main flag of the configure script.

Feature 10: HTTP Timeouts

The http.server timeouts have changed:

headersTimeout (the time allowed for an HTTP request header to be parsed) is set to 60000 milliseconds (60 seconds).

requestTimeout (the timeout used for an HTTP request) is set to 300000 milliseconds (5 minutes) by default.

Feature 11: Undici Library in Node.js

Undici is an official Node team library, although it’s more like an HTTP 1.1 full-fledged client designed from the ground up in Node.js.

Keep alive by default.
LIFO scheduling
No pipelining
Unlimited connections
Can follow redirected (opt-in)

Of note, we support and love Lizz‘s work, so we recommend you check out her fantastic talk in Nodeconf.EU about New and Exciting features in Node.js to understand more about this feature.

Other Features/Changes:

The project undoubtedly has some great challenges in the near future to continue growing and maintaining its leading position in the ecosystem. These are some of the upcoming features. Most of them are experimental; without being the only ones to discuss, there is much work and proposals from an active community such as the Node.js Community.

Default DNS resolution
ECMAScript modules improvements
Improved support for AbortController and AbortSignal
Updated Platform Support
Async Hooks
Direct Network Imports
Build-time user-land snapshot
Support for JSON Import Assertions
Unflagging of JSON modules (experimental)
Support for HTTPS and HTTP imports
Diagnostic Channel
Trace Events
WASI

You can check the full changelog here.

Final Remarks

Node.js 12 will go End-of-Life in April 2022.
Node.js 14 (LTS) or Node.js 16 (LTS) or Later Node.js 18 will be LTS.
Node.js 18 will be promoted to Long-term Support (LTS) in October 2022 (NOW).
After being promoted to LTS, Node.js 18 will be supported until April 2025.

Upgrade Now!

Moving to the LTS version is the best decision for you to include the following improvements in your development workflow:

FetchAPI and Web Streams
V8: New advanced features, array methods, improvements, and enhancements.
Test runner without the need for third-party packages.
Deprecated APIs: Check the list here

Enhancement in Intl.Locale API.
Performance improvement in both class fields and private class methods.

Migration

To migrate your version of Node, follow these steps:

For Linux and Mac users, follow these commands to upgrade to the latest version of Node. The module n makes version management easy:

npm install n -g

For the latest stable version:

n stable

For the latest version:

n latest

Windows Users
Visit the Node.js download page to install the new version of Node.js.

Special Thanks

With 99 contributors and 1348 commits Node.js 18 LTS came to life 🎉. Special thanks to @_rafaelgss @BethGriggs_ @_richard_lau_ To make this release happen 💚

$ nvm install 18.12.0

And thank you to all of Node.js project contributors. Our complete admiration and support for such incredible work 💪.

NodeSource Node.js Binary Distributions

NodeSource, from the beginning, was created with a great commitment to the developers’ community, which is why it has provided documentation for using the NodeSource Node.js Binary Distributions via .rpm, .deb as well as their setup and support scripts.

If you are looking for NodeSource’s Enterprise-grade Node.js platform, N|Solid, please visit https://downloads.nodesource.com/, and for detailed information on installing and using N|Solid, please refer to the N|Solid User Guide.

We are also aware that as a start-up, you want ‘Enterprise-grade’ at a startup price, this is why we extend our product to small and medium-sized companies, startups, and non-profit organizations with N|Solid SaaS.

Useful Links / References

You can upgrade to NodeJS v18 using the official download link

New Node.js features bring a global fetch API & test runner. Check out the Node version 16-18 report

Welcome Node.js 18 by RedHat
Announcing a new –experimental-modules