10 years of Node with Ujjwal “Ryzokuken” Sharma
In this episode of our Q&A series celebrating the 10th year of Node.js, we catch up with Ujjwal “Ryzokuken” Sharma as he shares his views on what he is most looking forward to in the future of Node.js and where he sees the new opportunities arising.
Ujjwal is a Node.js core collaborator, Electron maintainer, Google Summer of Code mentor and ex-student. An international speaker and a JavaScript/C++ developer, he has been working with the V8 team and the TC39 committee to help make JavaScript better, one commit at a time. He loves to talk about open source software, DevOps, JavaScript, Web Standards and the Open Web.
So firstly, can you tell us why is the Node.js community important to you?
I really like Node.js and working on Node core.
How long have you been working with Node.js and, in your opinion, what have been the most pivotal milestones in the project?
I've been contributing to Node.js core for around 1.5 years now. Regarding milestones, I really liked when Workers landed in core, really looking forward to three things: QUIC, WebCrypto and WASI.
To what do you attribute the sustained growth and usage of Node.js in the ecosystem?
The fact that Node.js core has a mission of being a nice working environment which is free from prejudice and harassment of any kind.
What do you believe are the most significant opportunities for Node.js over the next 3 years?
WASI, WASI, WASI. We gotta jump on this.
What do you see as the most popular features in the latest release lines of Node.js that will continue to drive further adoption?
Worker threads are pretty nifty. Apart from that, the ecosystem is amazing and it ensures people stick around.
Node.js pushes developers to become more efficient in both aspects of development, front-end and back-end, improving productivity for enterprise teams. Are full-stack developers the future?
Isomorphic web apps FTW? Idk, I'm a compiler developer :)
Do you think there is some nostalgia in the community at large that will keep Node.js popular or do you see new generations of developers embracing it?
I see a ton of amazing new blood picking up the reigns, actually. Node.js enables people to do what they previously couldn't using technologies they are familiar with.
Generally, overall downloads of all Node.js versions combined has continued to grow - by 40% year-over-year and more than 1 million times each day of 2018. However, the growth in new contributors has slowed somewhat. Is this a cause for concern or just a signal of greater stability in the larger Node ecosystem?
The latter. Node.js is reaching a decent level of stability and most of the things that people would like to achieve with Node.js, they can more or less achieve already (looks at Electron).
Last year Forrester called out Node.js’s versatility, staying power and relevance: “It is moving beyond being simply an application platform, and beginning to be used for rapid experimentation with corporate data, application modernization, and IoT solutions.” Is there potential for this versatility to continue to grow, opening new experimentations and opportunities?
Absolutely, I think the Blockchain space has embraced Node.js quite well, actually.
Best Feature of the past 10 years?
Workers
Best Reason to adopt in the enterprise?
Stability
Most Common pitfalls/programming mistakes to avoid?
Race conditions?
Best Node.js Performance tricks?
Monomorphism
Will you be joining the Node.js community at NodeConfEU 2019? If you are, what are you most looking forward to?
Yes! Along with my talk " To ESM is human: The journeyman's guide to modules in Node.js ", I love meeting all the amazing people!
Thank you for your time Ujjwal!
For the 10th anniversary of Node.js we sat down with 7 developers and chatted with them about Node and where it is headed. You can find the other interviews in this series below.
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