Node-with-ChakraCore.txt

NodeSummit, San Francisco, CA, Wed 27 Jul 2016

The Story of Node.js with ChakraCore

Arunesh Chandra
Senior Program Manager ChakraCore, Microsoft
@AruneshC

Node with ChakraCore.
Born out of necessity a year ago.
Help grow Node ecosystem.
Be completely open and contribute.
Chakrashim.
Submit a PR to Node mainline.
Maintained against current.
VM neutrality.
Node core as agnostic to JavaScript engine.
Build Node core on VM neutral APIs.
Today, very deeply tied to V8 engine.
Ripple effect through entire ecosystem.
VM neutrality will help grow the ecosystem.
Will keep ecosystem happier.
Less breakage if APIs in place.
VM summit held earlier this month.
Broad agreement about VM neutrality, good for Node.
IBM and Microsoft working on advancement of VM neutrality APIs.
Node modules node-gyp dependent (native) 10%, versus pure JavaScript 90%.
Look for popular native modules.
Abstract shim based on that.
Tedious and painful.
Performance is another area of focus for ChakraCore.
ChakraCore outperforms Chrome, Firefox.
Make debugging awesome.
JSRT debugging capabilities in ChakraCore.
Debug surface.
Shaping to match V8 not sufficient.
No standard way for debuggers to work.
Investigating that as well.
Figure out how to make more standard.
More formal contract.
With room for innovation.
Time travel debugger (TTD).
TDD uses circular buffer, configurable.
Demo -- TTD with ChakraCore on VS Code.
  - Web app fails.
  - Run app using trace.
  - Replay steps at breakpoint.
  - Entire context available.
  - 'Step back' button.
Currently available in VS Code.
Available as preview, soon on main.
Open sourced ChakraCore.
Announcing today, ChakraCore is available on Linux and OS X.
Early step, only tested on latest Ubuntu LTS.
Should support other Linux distros.
Demo -- VS Code debugging Node ChakraCore on Linux.
Node ChakraCore helping ecosystem.
Bringing fresh ideas.
Cross-platform support.
Roadmap:
  - Enable JIT compiler.
  - High performance GC.
  - Chrome debugging protocol.
  - TTD support.
  - VM neutral APIs.