With its newest features and enhancements, Node.js 20 has brought the developer community to a new level of excitement. This time, the Node development team has stuck with April 18, 2023, release target for Node 20. Node.js 20 will be upgraded to the Long-Term Support or LTS version in October 2023 and supported through April 2026 as long as the Node community sticks to the event conventions.
Updates and New Features in Node 20
Performance, error handling, and other features have all been improved in the most recent Node version 20, compared to the prior version. Let's go through each of these newest Node.js 20 changes and features in more detail:
Dependable Test Runner
The test_runner modules were experimental in Node.js version 19; however, Colin Ihrig's contributions have since been revised and designated stable in Node.js version 20. For the use of production it is necessary. Reporters and code coverage are two areas that still require consistency.
Custom ESM Loader Hooks are More Stable
The Custom hooks supplied via loaders (–experimental-loader=./foo.mjs) now have a dedicated thread to run, separated from the main line delivering a different loader scope and ensuring no cross-contamination between loaders and application codes.
import.meta.resolve() synchronous
The import.meta.resolve function now returns synchronously to match browser behavior. However, users can still specify whether their loader resolve hooks should be asynchronous or synchronous routines. Import.meta.resolve will still return synchronously in the application code even if async resolve hooks are loaded.
Permission Model for Node.js
Rafael Gonzaga provided the Permission Model feature to Node.js v20. It is an experimental concept designed to let programmers limit access to particular resources while their program is executing, such as file child process launching, system actions, and worker thread generation.
Upgraded V8 To 11.3
A new version of the V8 engine is added to Node.js 20 with the help of Michal Zasso. Here, Chromium 113's version 11.3, which delivers performance improvements, is applied to the V8 engine.
Website Crypto API
Another excellent feature in the Node 20 version is the coercion and validation of Web Crypto API function arguments adhering to their WebIDL definitions, which is identical to other Web Crypto API implementations and fosters interoperability. Here, highlighting compatibility with multiple JavaScript environments is the key goal.
Removals and Deprecations
As indicated by in the source, url.parse() has been deprecated at runtime with incorrect ports in the Node.js 20 upgrade. Due to the fact that url.parse() permits URLs with non-numeric ports, unexpected input may result, and hostname spoofing may become simpler. To lessen these vulnerabilities, future versions of Node.js, starting with version 20, will throw an exception if such URLs are discovered.
Conclusion
It is clear from the most recent features and upgrades covered in this Node 20 article that the platform's developers have worked very hard to enhance the platform's usability, speed, and security. The improvements in areas like error handling, module loading, and diagnostics will unquestionably enhance the overall user experience and assist developers in producing applications that are more reliable and scalable. The Node 20 release is a positive development for the platform overall and should be embraced by the Node.js community.
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