Node.js 8.0.0 release announcement

[MylesBorins]

Hey everyone. There is going to be a release announcement that will accompany the 8.0.0 release. This is going to be a bit higher level. Can you please chime into this thread things that we should consider including as well as a one or two sentence high level description

[mscdex]

Are you only considering semver-major changes here or what?

[MylesBorins]

Anything that is new in 8.x that is worth letting people know about

[addaleax]

I think my favourite cool big things are:

• N-API (experimental): N-API is Node’s new ABI-stable native API that will allow native addons to be written more easily across Node versions and across platforms.
• async_hooks (experimental): async_hooks enables users to monitor and track state across Node’s asynchronous operations, enabling better diagnostic tools and other utilities.
• (maybe) util.promisify: util.promisify() allows developers to wrap callback APIs to return Promises with little overhead, using a standard API.
• JS bindings for the inspector (experimental): The new inspector core module enables developers to leverage the debug protocol used by the Chrome inspector in order to inspect currently running JavaScript code.
• zero-filling Buffers: The legacy Buffer() constructor will zero-fill by default now, which makes Node safer by preventing a common pitfall from becoming a security issue.

Equally cool, but not really qualified to write two-sentence high-level summaries:

• TurboFan
• npm@5 (@zkat?)

_{(I am excited about Node 8.)}

[mscdex]

@MylesBorins I guess my question is relative to what? The most recent v7.x release? The last LTS branch (v6.x)? Or do we wait for the LTS comparison until the first v8.x LTS release?

[mscdex]

I think if we're going to mention TurboFan in one way or another, we should not make it seem like it's going to be enabled everywhere for the v8.0.0 release, but in a later v8.x release (with V8 5.9/6.0 or whatever).

[zkat]

Here's a pitch for an npm@5 one:

npm@5 is now bundled, including a big performance boost, more reliable builds through a lockfile, and lots of user interface improvements. See npm/npm#16244 for more details

(Note: I can update the changelog link to point to our Releases page probably tomorrow night/early Friday, after npm5 goes to npm@next)

[TimothyGu]

I think there should be one for WHATWG URL class too, if we were to graduate it from experimental before then.

[mcollina]

A relatively low-level but important change is the new stream.destroy() API. This have been in the talk for years in the streams wg. Depending on how high level the announcement is, we might not want to include it. Definitely it goes into the notable changes in the release.

[ronkorving]

Maybe an honorable mention of async/await without flags?

[jasnell]

@bnoordhuis mentions the change to Date parsing here...

The WHATWG URL implementation progress is definitely worth a mention.

[mscdex]

If we're going to mention ES changes as well, someone might want to look for others that might be worth noting too...

[MylesBorins]

async / await without a flag landed in 7.x

…

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[gibfahn]

async / await without a flag landed in 7.x

Sure, but for LTS users (which in theory is everyone using Node in production) this is the first release to support it.

This relates to @mscdex's question, is this a "new LTS release" blog, or a "new Current release" blog. Are we going to do another one when Node 8.6.0 (or whatever) goes LTS?

[ZibbyKeaton]

We will be writing two blogs here, similar to what we did with Node.js v6 (one announcing this new release line and one announcing it's transition to LTS). For content on this particular blog, we are looking for the major features that are going into this version and how they will help the end users. We will also be adding improvements in here as well. At the beginning of the blog, we make it clear that this is current and will move to LTS in October.

@zkat I'm working with your comms/marketing team on content for our NF blog post re: npm (just a FYI). I have your draft news release on hand. Looks like some awesome updates, congrats to you and your team!

@jasnell traditionally, we've done a blog post on the Node.js Foundation Medium page that highlights some of the more high-level updates. We do this as this will be consumed by the media. We usually also match this with a more technical deep dive post that has more of the big and small updates to the release on nodejs.org - will you be running point on writing this?

[ZibbyKeaton]

Also, so folks have reference point on what's been written in the past about this from a NF standpoint, here's a few example of release announcement posts: https://hackernoon.com/node-js-v6-transitions-to-lts-be7f18c17159 and https://nodejs.org/en/blog/announcements/v6-release/