Weekly Update - May 8th, 2015

io.js 2.0 releases

This week we had two io.js releases v2.0.0 and v2.0.1, complete changelog can be found on GitHub.

Notable changes

2.0.1

• async_wrap: (Trevor Norris) #1614
  • it is now possible to filter by providers
  • bit flags have been removed and replaced with method calls on the binding object
  • note that this is an unstable API so feature additions and breaking changes won't change io.js semver
• libuv: resolves numerous io.js issues:
  • #862 prevent spawning child processes with invalid stdio file descriptors
  • #1397 fix EPERM error with fs.access(W_OK) on Windows
  • #1621 build errors associated with the bundled libuv
  • #1512 should properly fix Windows termination errors
• addons: the NODE_DEPRECATED macro was causing problems when compiling addons with older compilers, this should now be resolved (Ben Noordhuis) #1626
• V8: upgrade V8 from 4.2.77.18 to 4.2.77.20 with minor fixes, including a bug preventing builds on FreeBSD

2.0.0

• crypto: significantly reduced memory usage for TLS (Fedor Indutny & Сковорода Никита Андреевич) #1529
• net: socket.connect() now accepts a 'lookup' option for a custom DNS resolution mechanism, defaults to dns.lookup() (Evan Lucas) #1505
• npm: Upgrade npm to 2.9.0. See the v2.8.4 and v2.9.0 release notes for details. Notable items:
  • Add support for default author field to make npm init -y work without user-input (@othiym23) npm/npm/d8eee6cf9d
  • Include local modules in npm outdated and npm update (@ArnaudRinquin) npm/npm#7426
  • The prefix used before the version number on npm version is now configurable via tag-version-prefix (@kkragenbrink) npm/npm#8014
• os: os.tmpdir() is now cross-platform consistent and will no longer returns a path with a trailing slash on any platform (Christian Tellnes) #747
• process:
  • process.nextTick() performance has been improved by between 2-42% across the benchmark suite, notable because this is heavily used across core (Brian White) #1571
  • New process.geteuid(), process.seteuid(id), process.getegid() and process.setegid(id) methods allow you to get and set effective UID and GID of the process (Evan Lucas) #1536
• repl:
  • REPL history can be persisted across sessions if the NODE_REPL_HISTORY_FILE environment variable is set to a user accessible file, NODE_REPL_HISTORY_SIZE can set the maximum history size and defaults to 1000 (Chris Dickinson) #1513
  • The REPL can be placed in to one of three modes using the NODE_REPL_MODE environment variable: sloppy, strict or magic (default); the new magic mode will automatically run "strict mode only" statements in strict mode (Chris Dickinson) #1513
• smalloc: the 'smalloc' module has been deprecated due to changes coming in V8 4.4 that will render it unusable
• util: add Promise, Map and Set inspection support (Christopher Monsanto) #1471
• V8: upgrade to 4.2.77.18, see the ChangeLog for full details. Notable items:
  • Classes have moved out of staging; the class keyword is now usable in strict mode without flags
  • Object literal enhancements have moved out of staging; shorthand method and property syntax is now usable ({ method() { }, property })
  • Rest parameters (function(...args) {}) are implemented in staging behind the --harmony-rest-parameters flag
  • Computed property names ({['foo'+'bar']:'bam'}) are implemented in staging behind the --harmony-computed-property-names flag
  • Unicode escapes ('\u{xxxx}') are implemented in staging behind the --harmony_unicode flag and the --harmony_unicode_regexps flag for use in regular expressions
• Windows:
  • Random process termination on Windows fixed (Fedor Indutny) #1512 / #1563
  • The delay-load hook introduced to fix issues with process naming (iojs.exe / node.exe) has been made opt-out for native add-ons. Native add-ons should include 'win_delay_load_hook': 'false' in their binding.gyp to disable this feature if they experience problems . (Bert Belder) #1433
• Governance:
  • Rod Vagg (@rvagg) was added to the Technical Committee (TC)
  • Jeremiah Senkpiel (@Fishrock123) was added to the Technical Committee (TC)

Breaking changes

Full details at https://github.com/nodejs/node/wiki/Breaking-Changes#200-from-1x

• V8 upgrade to 4.2, minor changes to C++ API
• os.tmpdir() is now cross-platform consistent and will no longer returns a path with a trailing slash on any platform
• While not a breaking change the 'smalloc' module has been deprecated in anticipation of it becoming unsupportable with a future upgrade to V8 4.4. See #1451 for further information.

Note: a new version of the 'url' module was reverted prior to release as it was decided the potential for breakage across the npm ecosystem was too great and that more compatibility work needed to be done before releasing it. See #1602 for further information.

Known issues

See https://github.com/nodejs/node/labels/confirmed-bug for complete and current list of known issues.

• Some problems with unreferenced timers running during beforeExit are still to be resolved. See #1264.
• Surrogate pair in REPL can freeze terminal #690
• process.send() is not synchronous as the docs suggest, a regression introduced in 1.0.2, see #760 and fix in #774
• Calling dns.setServers() while a DNS query is in progress can cause the process to crash on a failed assertion #894
• url.resolve may transfer the auth portion of the url when resolving between two full hosts, see #1435.
• readline: split escapes are processed incorrectly, see #1403

Community Updates

• Michael Dawson creates WG proposal under the Node Foundation.
• Mikeal Rogers wrote about growing up of io.js on Medium.
• CodeSchool blog post on what's new in io.js 2.0.
• Node Lead TJ Fontaine steps back from leader.

Upcoming Events

• NodeConf Adventure tickets are on sale, June 11th - 14th at Walker Creek Ranch, CA
• CascadiaJS tickets are on sale, July 8th - 10th at Washington State
• BrazilJS Conf tickets are on sale, August 21st - 22nd at Shopping Center BarraShoppingSul
• NodeConf EU tickets are on sale, September 6th - 9th at Waterford, Ireland