Deno - Why should you care

Talk given at require('lx') meetup on June 16th 2021.

Transcript

1. Deno: Why should you care? June 16th - Alexandre Portela dos Santos - require(‘lx’)
2. Who am I? • Alexandre Portela dos Santos, 27, Ericeira • Involved in the JS community • Occasional blogger • Passion for products and startups • Engineering at KI challenge.rs @ampsantos0 @asantos00
3. Agenda • Node and how it looks 10+ years later • Deno, why? • Architecture and internals • What does it bring to the table? • Demo • What’s next? • Q&A
4. Node.js • Changed how I/O was dealt with - asynchronously • Used an async-by-default language - JavaScript • Enabled different use-cases with JS on the server • Low-level, purely evented, non-blocking infrastructure • A complete success
5. Node.js - 12 years later • Node.js pushed the language forward • Invented features that didn’t existed • Created a standard-library for its needs • Encouraged the community to create loads of modules • Enabled accessing system resources from JS
6. Any problems? 1. JavaScript started to evolve in a different direction 2. Hard to keep up due to its huge adoption 3. Dependency-hell 4. Lack of standards 5. Security wasn’t a concern
7. 1. The evolution of JavaScript • ECMA International was created • Browsers started to add new features • Redundancy, incompatibilities • Third-party solutions here created to match the mother language
8. 2. Hard to keep up with updates • Node.js diverged from ECMAScript • Lots of legacy • Core written in C++ • Huge adoption made it hard to iterate
9. 3. Dependency hell • (too much) Low-level library encouraged creation of many small modules • Not possible to iterate on standard-library without a new version of the runtime
10. 4. Lack of standards • Didn’t provide a standard for common use-cases ◦ Testing ◦ Linting ◦ Dependency management ◦ Bundling • Too much tools around a basic Node.js project
11. 5. Security wasn’t a concern • Used a sandbox V8 to run the code • Poked wholes on V8 to access system resources ◦ Networking ◦ Filesystem ◦ ... • No way of limiting what Node has access to
12. Is there space for innovation? • Productivity of JavaScript is unquestionable • Ideal for scripts, prototyping, starting something up • Ability to iterate and improve with TypeScript • Needs of a codebase are now more concrete • We want to use the same “browser JavaScript” • We want the language to evolve fast
13. Deno enters the scene Deno is a simple, modern, and secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript that uses V8 and is built in Rust. • Secure by default • First-class TypeScript support • A single executable file • Complete and audited standard-library • Fully ECMAScript compatible
14. Under the hood
15. Demo time https://github.com/asantos00/require-lx-deno
16. What’s next? • WebGPU • HTTP2 • Plugin API being worked on • Finish Web Platform Tests compatibility • And much more
17. Giveaway Participating • Add your name to the chat • Draw will proceed https://alexandrempsantos.com/deno/i-published-a-book-deno-web-development/ Deno Web Development Write, test, maintain and deploy JavaScript and TypeScript web applications using Deno.
18. Thank you so much Questions? @ampsantos0 @asantos00 June 16th - Alexandre Portela dos Santos - require(‘lx’)