History of Node.js on a Timeline - RisingStack Engineering

• Ferenc Hámori
• Node.js

We’ve been publishing articles on Node.js for over 5 years now, so we thought it’d be interesting to look back at what exactly happened to Node.jsNode.js is an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime and is the most effective when building scalable network applications. Node.js is free of locks, so there's no chance to dead-lock any process. so far, from the point where it was born until Today.

In case we missed something significant, please let us know in the comments section!

This is the history of Node.js on a timeline, from 2009 until now (June, 2019):

Node.js milestones:

Node.js in 2009

• Node.js now has a name
• First very early preview of npm, the Node package manager
• Ryan Dahl’s (Creator of Node.js) Original Node.js Talk
• The first presentation on Node.js from Ryan Dahl at JSConf

Node.js in 2010

• Express: A Node.js web development framework
• Socket.io initial release
• Experimental Node.js Support on Heroku
• Ryan Dahl’s Google Tech Talk on Node.js
• Node.js 0.2.0 released

Node.js in 2011

• Node.js Guide
• Ryan Dahl’s AMA on Reddit
• npm 1.0: Released
• The Node Beginner Book, an introduction to Node.js, is now complete
• A comprehensive Node.js tutorial for beginners.
• LinkedIn uses Node.js
• LinkedIn launched its completely overhauled mobile app with new features and new parts under the hood.
• Ryan Dahl talks about the history of Node.js and why he created it
• Node.js in production at Uber
• Uber Engineering Manager Curtis Chambers explains why his company
  completely re-engineered their application using Node.js to increase
  efficiency and improve the partner and customer experience.

Node.js in 2012

• Node.js creator Ryan Dahl steps away from Node’s day-to-day
• Node.js v0.8.0 [stable] is out
• Hapi, a Node.js framework

Node.js in 2013

• Ghost: Blogging with Node.js
• Ghost is an open source publishing platform which is beautifully designed,
  easy to use, and free for everyone.
• The MEAN Stack: MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and Node.js
• How We Built eBay’s First Node.js Application
• Node.js Memory Leak at Walmart
• Eran Hammer of Wal-Mart labs came to the Node.js core team
  complaining of a memory leak he had been tracking down for months.
• PayPal releases Kraken, a Node.js framework
• “Gives your Node.js express apps some extra arms”
• Koa – Web framework for Node.js

Node.js in 2014

• TJ Fontaine takes over Node project
• Node.js Advisory Board
• Joyent and several members of the Node.js community announced a
  proposal for a Node.js Advisory Board as a next step towards a fully open
  governance model for the Node.js open source project.
• Node.js in Flame Graphs – Netflix
• IO.js – Evented I/O for V8 Javascript

Node.js in 2015

Q1

• IO.js 1.0.0
• Joyent Moves to Establish Node.js Foundation
• Joyent, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, Fidelity, SAP and The Linux Foundation Join
  Forces to Support Node.js Community With Neutral and Open Governance
• IO.js and Node.js reconciliation proposal

Q2

• npm Private Modules
• Node lead TJ Fontaine is stepping down and leaving Joyent
• A changing of the guard in Nodeland.
• Node.js and io.js are merging under the Node Foundation

Q3

• 4.0 is the new 1.0

Q4

• Node v4.2.0, first Long Term Support release
• Apigee, RisingStack and Yahoo join the Node.js Foundation
• Node Interactive
• The first annual Node.js conference by the Node.js Foundation

Node.js in 2016

A.k.a. The year of Leftpad!

Q1

• Express becomes an incubated project
• The leftpad incident
• Google Cloud Platform joins the Node.js Foundation

Q2

• npm has 210.000 users

Q3

• CJ Silverio becomes the CTO of npm
• The first Node Interactive in Europe

Q4

• The yarn package manager got released
• Node Interactive North America in Austin, Texas
• Node.js 6 becomes the LTS version
• IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and NodeSource Join Forces on Node.js API; Node.js Build System will Start Producing Nightly node-chakracore Builds

Node.js in 2017 – the year of mainstream adoption

2017 was a huge year for Node.js and it’s users. The number of online Node instances reached 8.8 million, with 3 billion npmnpm is a software registry that serves over 1.3 million packages. npm is used by open source developers from all around the world to share and borrow code, as well as many businesses. There are three components to npm: the website the Command Line Interface (CLI) the registry Use the website to discover and download packages, create user profiles, and... package downloads a week.

The number of contributors grew to 1500, and Node reached more than 40,000 stars on GitHub.

According to the The Battery Ventures Open Source Software Index, Node is the 4th most important open-source project!

Q1

• Node.js Certification Program to be launched by the Node Foundation
• NASA’s Node.js Case Study Released

Q2

• What’s new in Node 8
• N-API: Next generation Node.js APIs for native modules
• Mark Hinkle becomes the new executive director of the Node Foundation

Q3

• HTTP2 Arrives into the Node.js Core
• The Node.js Survey of 2017 Released
• A new V8 is coming, Node.js Performance is Changing
• Node.js 8.3.0 is now available shipping with the Ignition + TurboFan execution pipeline
• Node.js Forked Again Over Complaints of Unresponsive Leadership

Q4

• Node.js State of the Union 2017
• Node.js 8 Moves into Long-Term Support and Node.js 9 Becomes the New Current Release Line
• Node.js Interactive 2017 Vancouver
• Two-factor authentication & read-only tokens arrive to npm

Node.js in 2018 – Node 10 LTS & Node 11 Current

Q1

• Announcing The Node.js Application Showcase
• Introducing JS Interactive: An Event for the JavaScript Ecosystem

Q2

• Node.js can HTTP/2 push!
• The Node.js Project Introduces Latest Release Line: Node.js 10.x
• Announcing npm@6
• Third Annual Node.js User Survey Data Now Available

Q3

• Ryan Dahl: 10 Things I Regret About Node.js
  • The inventor of Node.js discusses bad decisions like not sticking with Promises, Security, The Build System (GYP), package.json, node_modules, require(“module”) without the extension “.js”, index.js & more..
• Now, you can deploy your Node.js app to App Engine standard environment
• N-API: Next generation APIs for Node.js native addons available across all LTS release lines

Q4

• Node+JS Interactive 2018 Videos released
• October Brings Node.js 10.x to LTS and Node.js 11 to Current!
• ECMAScript modules in Node.js: the new plan

Node.js in 2019 – Node 12, Deno & Trouble at NPM

Q1

• Introducing Node.js Working Group Series: From Security to Performance 
• Node.js Selected by Google for .dev Top Level Domain Early Access
• Introducing the OpenJS Foundation: The Next Phase of JavaScript Ecosystem Growth
• Now Open! Call For Papers for Node+JS Interactive 2019

Q2

• Announcing a new –experimental-modules
• Nice People Matter? NPM may stand for Not Politely Managed – job cuts leave staff sore
• Ryan Dahl: Deno, a new way to JavaScript
  • From async-await to ArrayBuffers, the JavaScript language has changes significantly in the decade since Node.js was designed. Deno takes advantage of these developments and incorporate lessons learned in the development of Node to provide a new JavaScript platform built on V8 and Rust.
• Introducing Node.js 12
• Node.js v12 – New Features You Shouldn’t Miss
  • Here is a list of changes we consider essential to highlight:
    • V8 updated to version 7.4
    • AsyncAsynchrony, in software programming, refers to events that occur outside of the primary program flow and methods for dealing with them. External events such as signals or activities prompted by a program that occur at the same time as program execution without causing the program to block and wait for results are examples of this category. Asynchronous input/output is an... stack traces arrived
    • Faster async/await implementation
    • New JavaScript language features
    • Performance tweaks & improvements (more info..)
    • Progress on Worker threads, N-API
  • Default HTTP parser switched to llhttp
  • New experimental “Diagnostic Reports” feature
• The Economics of Open Source by C J Silverio
  • “The JS package commons is in the hands of a for-profit entity. We trust npm with our shared code, but we have no way to hold npm accountable for its behavior. A trust-based system cannot function without accountability, but somebody still has to pay for the servers. How did we get here, and what should JavaScript do now?”

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