10 years of Node with Alex Korzhikov of ING Bank
To mark the 10th anniversary of Node.js, we're reflecting on how far it has come and where it is headed. Here we speak with Alex Korzhikov to hear his views including how Node.js is particularly suited to front-end development.
A Software engineer, team lead, instructor, mentor, and author of technical materials with 10 years of programming experience, Alex’s interests are in Web Components, JSON Schema, Algorithms, DevOps and Machine Learning.
Why is the Node.js community important to you / your company?
I enjoy JavaScript and Node technologies since the first professional experience with them. I am also experienced in Polymer, Angular, HTML, CSS, Git.
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 deeply involved for around 4 years. I would consider Promises related API (promisify, etc) as being a key development.
To what do you attribute the sustained growth and usage of Node.js in the ecosystem?
JavaScript as a super flexible language. Node I/O and event loop design have also been instrumental.
What do you believe are the most significant opportunities for Node.js over the next 3 years?
Compete to the Deno project could become a huge growth goal of Node itself. However, it would be a tough one. Improving security paths should be an important part of Node future.
What do you see as the most popular features in the latest release lines of Node.js that will continue to drive further adoption?
EcmaScript Modules adoption
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?
Yes and no. Focusing on FrontEnd, BackEnd or both worlds can have the perfect sense depending on the tasks and goals a person wants to achieve.
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?
Feels like the first one, nostalgia.
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?
This could be a cause for concern. However, that can be caused by the growth of other technologies. Node itself is nice and stable.
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?
It needs a breath of fresh air. Maybe the adoption of WebAssembly modules could be a one.
Best feature of the past 10 years?
Promises
Best reason to adopt in the enterprise?
FrontEnd related tasks are still great with Node
Most common pitfalls/programming mistakes to avoid?
Unreadable, smelly code
Best Node.js Performance tricks?
Debugger; ":)"
Will you be joining the Node.js community at NodeConfEU 2019? If you are, what are you most looking forward to?
I will be conducting a workshop this year alongside my colleague Pavlik Kiselev, which will show you how to design and build best practice CLI tools using Typescript. We've already started to panic!
Thank you for your time, Alex!
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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