Weekly Update - Sep 11th, 2015

Yosuke Furukawa

Node.js News — September 11th

Node.js v4.1.0 / io.js v3.3.1 are released

Node.js v4.1.0 and io.js v3.3.1 Releases

This week we have two releases: Node.js v4.1.0 and io.js v3.3.1, complete changelog from previous releases can be found on GitHub.

Node.js v4.1.0 Notable changes

• buffer:
  • Buffers are now created in JavaScript, rather than C++. This increases the speed of buffer creation (Trevor Norris) #2866.
  • Buffer#slice() now uses Uint8Array#subarray() internally, increasing slice() performance (Karl Skomski) #2777.
• fs:
  • fs.utimes() now properly converts numeric strings, NaN, and Infinity (Yazhong Liu) #2387.
  • fs.WriteStream now implements _writev, allowing for super-fast bulk writes (Ron Korving) #2167.
• http: Fixed an issue with certain write() sizes causing errors when using http.request() (Fedor Indutny) #2824.
• npm: Upgrade to version 2.14.3, see https://github.com/npm/npm/releases/tag/v2.14.3 for more details (Kat Marchán) #2822.
• src: V8 cpu profiling no longer erroneously shows idle time (Oleksandr Chekhovskyi) #2324.
• timers: #ref() and #unref() now return the timer they belong to (Sam Roberts) #2905.
• v8: Lateral upgrade to 4.5.103.33 from 4.5.103.30, contains minor fixes (Ali Ijaz Sheikh) #2870.
  • This fixes a previously known bug where some computed object shorthand properties did not work correctly (#2507).

io.js v3.3.1 Notable changes

• buffer: Fixed a minor errors that was causing crashes (Michaël Zasso) #2635,
• child_process: Fix error that was causing crashes (Evan Lucas) #2727
• crypto: Replace use of rwlocks, unsafe on Windows XP / 2003 (Ben Noordhuis) #2723
• libuv: Upgrade from 1.7.3 to 1.7.4 (Saúl Ibarra Corretgé) #2817
• node: Fix faulty process.release.libUrl on Windows (Rod Vagg) #2699
• node-gyp: Float v3.0.3 which has improved support for Node.js and io.js v0.10 to v4+ (Rod Vagg) #2700
• npm: Upgrade to version 2.14.3 from 2.13.3, includes a security update, see https://github.com/npm/npm/releases/tag/v2.14.2 for more details, (Kat Marchán) #2696.
• timers: Improved timer performance from porting the 0.12 implementation, plus minor fixes (Jeremiah Senkpiel) #2540, (Julien Gilli) nodejs/node-v0.x-archive#8751 nodejs/node-v0.x-archive#8905

Known issues

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

• Some uses of computed object shorthand properties are not handled correctly by the current version of V8. e.g. [{ [prop]: val }] evaluates to [{}]. #2507
• Some problems with unreferenced timers running during beforeExit are still to be resolved. See #1264.
• Surrogate pair in REPL can freeze terminal. #690
• 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.

Node.js Foundation Combines Node.js and io.js Into Single Codebase in New Release

Node.js Foundation posts an entry about Node.js new release and introduction of Node Foundation. The details are here

Node.js Interactive

Node.js Interactive is a new, annual, vendor-neutral conference for Node.js. It is being led by the newly formed Node.js Foundation.

Community Updates

• We still need a V8 maintainer for our LTS build! Head on over to GitHub to see if the requirements match your capabilities.
• According to Raygun blog, Node.js v4.0.0 is 8% faster than Node.js v0.12.
• Tony Pujals, evangelism WG member, posts an entry about Node.js v4.0.0, He discusses ES6 in Node.js v4.0.0, LTS, and SemVer.

If you have spotted or written something about Node.js, do come over to our Evangelism team repo and suggest it on the Issues page, specifically the Weekly Updates issue.

Upcoming Events

• Node.js Italian Conference tickets are on sale, October 10th at Desenzano - Brescia, Italy
• JSConf CO, October 16th - 17th at Ruta N, Medellin, Colombia
• EmpireNode, October 23rd at New York, US.
• NodeFest, November 7th at Tokyo, Japan
• Nodevember, November 14th - 15th at Nashville, Tennessee, US.
• NodeConf Barcelona, November 21st at Barcelona, Spain
• Node.js Interactive, December 8-9 at Portland, US.

Have an event about Node.js coming up? You can put your events here through the Evangelism team repo and announce it in the Issues page, specifically the Weekly Updates issue.