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| <title>node v0.4 announcement</title> |
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| <h2>Second Stable Branch of Node released</h2> |
| |
| <p> |
| <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/wiki/Migrating-from-v0.2-to-v0.3">Wiki |
| page detailing API changes between v0.4 and v0.2</a> |
| |
| <p> |
| Major changes since v0.2: |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li> Major overhaul of TLS/SSL system. Previously the binding to |
| OpenSSL was heavily interwoven into the socket code. This binding was |
| reworked to present each connection as a pair of "streams" instead: a |
| duplex encrypted stream and a duplex cleartext stream. The encrypted |
| stream is piped to a raw TCP socket using the general purpose |
| <code>Stream.prototype.pipe()</code> method. Functionality was |
| enhanced and API simplified. |
| |
| <li>Simpler HTTP client API with connection pools. |
| |
| <li> Cheaper <code>Buffer</code> allocation. Node uses |
| <code>Buffer</code> objects in many places - it was noticed that they |
| were relatively slow to allocate and difficult to garbage collect. The |
| implementation changed to use pure javascript objects instead of |
| an <code>ObjectWrap</code> which improved performance. |
| |
| <li> With a good amount of experience now, some modifications to the |
| module loading system were made to better support package managers. |
| In particular, npm was forced to resort to deep symlinks and "shim" |
| modules to work around missing features in <code>require()</code>. The main |
| changes are: |
| <ol> |
| <li><code>require()</code> calls realpath. That is, |
| it resolves symbolic links. This allows symlinked modules to make |
| relative requires. |
| |
| <li><code>require()</code> now has a primitive understanding of |
| <code>package.json</code>. It looks for the <code>main</code> |
| script. This allows <code>require()</code> to work on package |
| directories directly. |
| |
| <li>A specially named directory, <code>node_modules/</code>, is |
| searched in the current directory for any modules. This will |
| hopefully encourage programmers to bundle modules rather than |
| rely on a global namespace. |
| </ol> |
| Read more about these features in <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/blob/01a864a29d64119054401784cd9255c3a813bdbc/doc/api/modules.markdown">the |
| module documentation</a>. |
| |
| <li> A half-complete but good start a native windows build with MinGW |
| is underway by Bert Builder. Build instructions can be found <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/wiki/Building-node.js-on-mingw">on |
| the wiki</a>. |
| |
| <li> Node upgraded to the latest version of V8, <code>v3.1.2</code>. |
| This includes much work including V8's new compilation infrastructure |
| and a GDB plugin on Linux. |
| Read <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/blob/583f2e599962f2664dbaafa0ae98a8d6c1242441/deps/v8/ChangeLog">the |
| full V8 ChangeLog</a>. |
| |
| <li>A new built-in client for V8's debugger was added to Node. It is |
| still very primitive but usable for simple task. There is a <a |
| href="http://vimeo.com/19465332">small introduction video</a> and |
| some <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/blob/01a864a29d64119054401784cd9255c3a813bdbc/doc/api/debugger.markdown">documentation</a>. |
| |
| <li>An <code>os</code> module was added by Brian White which exposes |
| a lot of basic but useful system information: <code>os.cpus(), |
| os.freemem(), os.totalmem(), os.loadavg()</code> |
| |
| <li> And, of course, many of bug fixes. See the |
| <a |
| href="https://github.com/ry/node/blob/01a864a29d64119054401784cd9255c3a813bdbc/ChangeLog">full |
| changelog</a>. |
| |
| </ul> |
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