Pacquet package manager; WebGPU; test automation; NodeConf EU 2023 videos

“WebGPU is often perceived as a web graphics API that grants unified and fast access to GPUs by exposing cutting-edge hardware capabilities and enabling rendering and computation operations on a GPU, analogous to Direct3D 12, Metal, and Vulkan.”

“However, WebGPU transcends the boundaries of a mere JavaScript API; it is a fundamental building block akin to WebAssembly, with implications that extend far beyond the web due to its burgeoning ecosystem. The Chrome team acknowledges WebGPU as more than just web technology; it’s a thriving ecosystem centered around a core technology.”

• Three common types of test automation
• Pyramid or Crab? Find a testing strategy that fits
• Defining test cases and priorities
• To test or not to test, a technical perspective
• Four common types of code coverage

• “Architectural changes in new V8 versions and how they boost your Node Server Performance” by Tamar Twena

  “In this talk, Tamar will get into the internals of V8 in the new Node.js versions, from the code interpreters and compilers to the memory management: What was changed? which layers were added? Why does it make Node.js applications much faster and in which patterns have improved?”

• “Migrating Babel from CommonJS to ESM” by Nicoló Ribaudo

  “CommonJS has been the go-to module system for Node.js for more than a decade, but the ecosystem is slowly moving to ECMAScript Modules. CommonJS and ESM have different features, and they are not fully compatible with each other: Should existing libraries migrate to ESM? Should they keep using ESM forever? Are JavaScript tools ready for native ESM? Babel is one of the most used packages on npm, and we have been slowly working to move away from CommonJS. What obstacles have we found? How did we overcome them? What have we learned in the process? How do we ensure a smooth transition for our users?”

• “ESM loaders: enhancing module loading in Node.js” by Gil Tayar

  “Native ESM support for Node.js was a chance for the Node.js project to release official support for enhancing the module loading experience, to enable use cases such as on-the-fly transpilation, module stubbing, support for loading modules from HTTP, and monitoring. While CommonJS has support for all this, it was never officially supported and was done by hacking into the Node.js runtime code. ESM has fixed all this.”

  “We will look at the architecture of ESM loading in Node.js, and discuss the loader API that supports enhancing it. We will also look into advanced features such as loader chaining and off-thread execution.”

• “AsyncContext: observability in JavaScript through TC39 and WinterCG” by Daniel Ehrenberg

  “To measure the performance of distributed applications, it’s useful to see where an operation comes from, chain them together, and build a distributed trace. OpenTelemetry calls these ‘span IDs’. But how do you keep track of the current span in JavaScript? Node.js’s AsyncLocalStorage is one option that can work, but it is missing in some places (e.g., the browser) and has a performance cost associated with it. This talk introduces AsyncContext, a mechanism to make this possible across all JavaScript environments. AsyncContext is being proposed as a standard, in a collaboration between TC39 and WinterCG.”

• “WebAssembly Components and JavaScript” by Guy Bedford

  “The WebAssembly Component model is an early-stage WebAssembly specification enabling new forms of virtualization and runtime integrations across languages. Coinciding with the stabilization timeframe for Preview 2, this talk will showcase the latest release of the JavaScript toolchain projects. Live demos will be provided featuring workflows for seamless interop with compiled languages as well as how JavaScript itself can be virtualized.”