Introduction to new NodeJS 19: Latest updates and features

Even though this 2022-year chapter is about to end, October has brought me some positive developer news. 2022 has seen significant releases in the development space, including Angular 14, React 18, Tez JS, and others. With every technology releasing fresh updates, features, and functionalities, the Nodejs developer community could not ask for more.

This time, October surprised us with a fresh LTS (Long-Term Support) version of Node.js and a new major release.

The Node.js community has indeed announced the release of Node.js 19, which includes an update to the V8 JavaScript engine to version 10.7 and HTTP(s)/1.1.

The Node.js team updated the V8 JavaScript engine and added many additional features to the most recent version of the software, version 19.0.0, published on October 19, 2022. When Node.js 18 enters LTS later this month, Node.js 19 will take its place as the ‘Current’ release line. According to the Node.js team’s official statement, Node.js 19 will remain the ‘Current’ release for the following six months, through April 2023.

Therefore, for product deployments, we advise sticking with the LTS release. In upcoming projects, we’ll give the newest Node.js 19 version a shot. You should also try out the new features and functionalities for better development.

Table of Content 📃
What's New in Node.js 19?
Node.js 18 LTS status
Concluding

Node.js 19: What’s new?

Node.js 19 resulted from more than 1,150 contributions since the previous release. However, as much of the work was done in the background correcting or reworking already existing features, there is fewer headline features this time. Among the noteworthy ones are the following:

–watch

Before Node.js 19 was released, this feature was already included in the Node.js 18 release line, demonstrating how additions may be quickly added to new releases. However, I still thought it was worth mentioning!

Node.js 19 introduces an experimental “—watch” command line option, which you will like if you have ever used nodemon to accelerate your development. With the help of this feature, Node.js is started in watch mode and will immediately restart when files are modified. It should be emphasized that only Windows and macOS, the two most widely used development platforms, are supported.

keep-alive enabled by default on global Agents

Both http.globalAgent and https.globalAgent in Node.js 19 employ keep-alive by default, typically leading to improved overall performance. The documentation for that choice is available here.

Diagnostic Channel Development Process and worker diagnostic channel events have been added. It’s wonderful to see that Node.js diagnostics continue to improve.

Advancement on the Diagnostic Channel

Process and worker diagnostic channel events have been introduced. It’s wonderful to see diagnostics continue to improve in Node.js.

V8 10.7

The V8 JavaScript engine is now available in version 10.7, thanks to Node.js 19. This improves efficiency while also keeping Node.js updated with JavaScript capabilities. The V8 JavaScript engine is the runtime environment that carries out JavaScript code, making it possible for developers to write JavaScript without worrying about whether their code will work on Linux, Windows, macOS, or hardware powered by x64, Arm, or Power PC. However, because V8 is written in C++, the Node community must maintain and enhance it across various hardware and operating system setups.

npm 8.19.2

Although the npm version included in the Node.js 18 line is the same one that will be included in Node.js 19, npm was first released in version 8.6.0; thus, new updates keep npm up to date.

Platform Assistance

In contrast to the previous release, Node.js 19 does not significantly alter the range of supported platforms. The standard prerequisites listed in BUILDING.md have not changed, but any operating systems that have reached their end of life will no longer be supported.

No Support for DTrace/SystemTap/ETW

DTrace can be used to get a thorough picture of the running processes on the system, as well as how much memory, CPU, disk, and network resources they are using.

It can be a helpful tool, but maintaining it is labor-intensive. As a result, as of version 19.0.0, Node.js does not support DTrace/SystemTap/ETW. The main factor is how resources are prioritized. The complexity of maintaining support for these instruments has shown to be effective with a clearly defined approach.

IIhttp 8.1.0

[email protected] is included with Node.js 19.

This project is porting the [http parser] to TypeScript.  It is used to generate the C source file needed, which may then be linked and compiled with an embedder like Node.js.

Both requests and responses are parsed. High-performance HTTP applications are where the parser is meant to be used.

The llhttp project is constantly being improved if one hire Nodejs developer team with new API capabilities and callbacks.

Node.js 18 has been elevated to LTS status

Node.js 18 has been upgraded to LTS, making it ready for usage in production. Like every new release, Node.js includes improvements and functionality that make upgrading a wise decision. These consist of the following:

• Experimental Fetch
• Experimental Test Runner
• Enhancements to ECMAScript modules
• Better AbortController and AbortSignal support
• Platform Support Updates
• Version 10.2 of V8
• OPENSSL 3 Assistance
• Resolution of default DNS

Conclusion

Node.js 19 includes new features and enhancements, such as an experimental node watch mode, HTTP (S)/1.1 KeepAlive by default, and the V8 JavaScript engine 10.7 functionality. Until node.js 20 is released, it is the current release. In future projects, we will test the applications and modules using Node.js 19 for improved performance. With the latest upgrades and functionalities, we are confident that Node.js 19 will demonstrate the bright side of web app development.