Node.js has been released in version 12. One of the peculiarities of the new release is that the JavaScript runtime appears to be starting around 30 percent faster and may now have better standard heap limits. This means that the update now sets the JavaScript heap size based on available memory; the defaults selected in earlier versions of the JavaScript engine V8 underlying Node.js are no longer default.

Many innovations

Node.js now uses V8 in version 7.4. Features that go along with it are asynchronous track traces, faster calls with argument deviations, and probably faster JavaScript parsing. In Node.js 12, TLS 1.3 has also risen to the new standard max protocol. This TLS release appears to be more secure than its predecessors. In addition, the default parser is changed to llhttp. This is a TypeScript port of the written in C http_parser, which is probably easier to maintain.

Also, there’s talk about Version 12 providing better support for native modules in combination with worker threads, which are useful for CPU-intensive JavaScript operations. An updated N API should also make it easier to use custom threads for native asynchronous functions.

Finally, the developers point out two experimental features: “Diagnostic report” allows users to report on-demand or specific events, and support for ES6 modules has also been updated.

Future LTS release

Node.js 12.0 will be the new release with long-term support (LTS) from October of this year. This means that it will receive a total of three years of support – six months as the current release, 18 months as an active release, and 12 months as a maintenance release.

More information about the new release can be found in the release notes.