Introduction to iojs

Ross Kukulinski / @RossKukulinski / yodlr

Last edited January 28, 2015https://github.com/rosskukulinski/iojs_talk

Disclaimer

• The following opinions are my own
• Lots of history / side conversations behind iojs
• Would love corrections/edits via GitHub
• io.js moves FAST

Node.js Background

• Originally created by Ryan Dahl
• Trademark and copyright purchased by Joyent in 2010
• Open Source under MIT License
• Project led by Benevolent Dictator for Live (BDFL), currently TJ Fontaine of Joyent

Node.js Release History

• Node v0.6.0 - Novemeber 5th, 2011
• Node v0.8.0 - June 25th, 2012
• Node v0.10.0 - March 11th, 2013
• Node v0.12.0 - "In two weeks" (since early 2014)

Node Core Contributions

NPM Package Count

Community frustration

• Slow and unpredictable release cycles
• Outdated dependencies (V8, libuv, others)
• Difficult to contribute to core
• Lack of transparency
• Limited community involvement in project direction

Node Forward

• Started in July 2014
• Brain child of Mikeal Rogers
• "Broad community effort to improve Node, JavaScript, and their ecosystem through open collaboration"
• Formed Technical Committee (TC) of many of Node core committers
• TC meetings recorded via Google Hangouts

Node.js Advisory Board

• Joyent's new CEO, Scott Hammond, recognizes community frustration
• Forms Node.js Advisory Board to open dialog
• Announced on October 23rd 2014, but process started in September 2014
• AB members overlap with TC

Timeline of iojs

• July 11, 2014: Mikeal Rogers creates private node-forward repository
• August 2014: Joyent's new CEO, Scott Hammond, reaches out to Node community leaders re: direction of Node.js
• August 2014: node-forward GitHub organization formed, including "fork" of joyent/node
• October 9, 2014: node-forward/node conflicts with Node.js trademark, repo made private
• November 26th, 2014: Fedor Indutny creates iojs org, TC moves dev there
• January 13th, 2015: io.js 1.0.0 released (Co-insiding with Fedor's birthday!)

Does iojs compete with Joyent or Node.js?

• No (not really)
• Opportunity for Node core team to rapidly improve Node.
• Goal is to eventually merge iojs back to Node

Steps to merge iojs into Node.js

• Fix governance
• Create a foundation
• Improve release process

State of io.js

@mikeal published Jan 27, 2015

• over 400K downloads of iojs so far
• Last week 8 new committers to #iojs
• io.js to be marked stable in March

So what's new with iojs? (1/2)

• Major V8 upgrade
  • 3.14.5.9 in Node v0.10.35
  • 3.26.33 in Node v0.11.14
  • 3.31.74.9 in iojs v1.0.0
  • 4.1 in iojs v1.0.3 (not breaking change)
• V8 upgrade brings lots of fixes and perf improvements
• V8 version now in line with Chrome (helpful for NW.js)
• Support for ES6 features w/o --harmony flag
• Changelog from v0.10.35

So what's new with iojs? (2/2)

(Pretty much what will be in 0.12)

• updated npm:latest (curently 2.1.18)
• openssl 1.0.1k
• Streams3
• execSync child_process
• Cluster round-robin
• Crypto performance improvements
• For deep-dive, check out @trevnorris talk at NodeDay

ES6 in iojs

• Perhaps the most exciting thing!
• No more '--harmony' flag
• Block scoping, let, const, collections, map, generators, promises, and more!
• See iojs es6 page
• Also helpful is es6 compatibility table
• And interesting es6 features exploration

There's no such thing as a free lunch

iojs has technical issues

• V8 upgrade breaks native modules (use rvagg/nan)
• Incomplete list of modules not supported (yet)
• Installed binary conflict node vs iojs
• Potential npm package 'engine' conflicts

Getting Started with iojs

Installing iojs

• Download from iojs.org (conflicts with Node.js)
• nvm v0.23.0
• n support PRed
• Homebrew support via cask PRed
• NodeSource distribution in development
• Heroku already supports iojs

Contributing to iojs

• Create a logo
• Hang out on #iojs on Freenode
• Voice your opinions/ideas on node-forward/discussions
• Get involved with working groups for build, website, and/or streams (more coming soon)

tldr;

• iojs is a community fork of Joyent's Node.js
• Focused on improving pace of technological improvements
• Will likely merge with Node.js if governance issues resolved
• This is healthy and necessary for the Node ecosystem
• Strap yourself in: things might be bumpy for a while
• Keep your prod systems running Node.js for now

Thanks!

Ross Kukulinski

kukulinski.com | @rosskukulinski