#NeedToNode Recap: Introducing Node.js v6 LTS "Boron"
Last week Node.js v6 became the second release line of Node.js to go into mode LTS, codenamed "Boron". In this month’s Need to Node with Rod Vagg, Node.js TSC Chairperson and Chief Node Officer at NodeSource, we got an introduction to the differences between the Node.js v4 and v6 LTS releases. Here’s a quick recap of the webinar:
Top 3 Takeaways
The Node.js v6 release branch has been pushed into LTS mode, codenamed "Boron".
The suggested migration period from v4 to v6 LTS is within 12 months, for a smooth transition
New features, including major ES6 support, npm v3, and several new APIs in core.
Video
Webinar Recap
Start planning for transitioning away from Node.js v4 LTS - the optimal transition will be over the next 12 months.
There were 89 total breaking changes from v4 LTS in v6 LTS. Some of these include changes to Buffer constructors and creation, Crypto and TLS module cleanup, and an update - and subsequent reversion - of fs.realpath().
Some of the new features in Node.js v6 processing V8’s profiler, a new process warning API, an EventEmitter API to fetch registered event listeners, safe temporary directory creation, several new Buffer APIs, a CPU usage API to fetch the load on both the system and on the user, an argument for resolving and caching modules, a crypto API that enables constant time equality checking for preventing timing attacks on value comparison, native warnings to standard error for Promise rejection
Read more about new features in Node.js v6: See The 10 Key Features in Node.js v6 LTS Boron After You Upgrade
There are a suite of changes to the V8 engine, including ES6 features. Some of those include the automatic naming of the anonymous function, object property destructuring, rest parameters, the spread operator, default function parameters, array includes, proxies, the Reflect API.
Finally, the bundled npm version in Node.js v6 changed from the v2 line to the v3 line. There are significant differences between v2 and v3, including optimized deduplication of packages, fairly radical shrinkwrap improvements, and peer dependencies
Resources
Node.js v6 Transitions to LTS by the Node.js Foundation on Medium
The Node.js LTS Working Group on GitHub
The official Node.js v6 (LTS) Documentation
The How npm Works guide for npm v3, which covers differences between npm v2 and v3
The Debugging Node.js with Chrome DevTools post by Paul Irish
Docs for new JavaScript features in Node.js v6:
The MDN Docs for JavaScript Destructuring
The MDN Docs for the JavaScript Rest Parameter
The MDN Docs for the JavaScript Spread Operator
The MDN Docs for default function parameters in JavaScript
The MDN Docs for Array.includes() in JavaScript
The MDN Docs for the Proxy object in JavaScript
The MDN Docs for the Reflect object in JavaScript