V8 Release 5.0 (upcoming)

http://v8project.blogspot.com/2016/03/v8-release-50.html

by onestone • 10 years ago

91 31 10 years ago

v8project.blogspot.com

STRML2• 10 years ago

This is a nice release.

I've always been confused about V8 versioning. Breaking changes appear to come all the time in minor versions.

And there's this note from the release:

Note: The version number 5.0 does not carry semantic significance or mark a major release (as opposed to a minor release).

So what does it mark? Why 5.0 at all then?

apaprocki• 10 years ago

They changed their versioning process to align with Chrome. Chrome 50 == v8 5.0, Chrome 51 == v8 5.1, etc.

natorion2• 10 years ago

Correct.

Major versions make more sense when you create a release based on the content. V8 is creating its releases based on time (~6 week cadence). So a 'major' version is nothing special anymore. In 4.9 we greatly expanded our ES2015 support which was huge but only incremented the minor version because of the same reason.

Disclaimer: I work on the V8 team.

quarterto• 10 years ago

Perhaps they want to align with Node.js version numbering?

Cthulhu_3• 10 years ago

It's more likely the other way around; Node runs on V8, not the other way around.

ausjke• 10 years ago

How does nodejs sync with V8 releases? ECMA-version, V8-version, Node-version, Javascript-version, browser-version with different features support, it's quite a bit.

onestone• 10 years ago

Node.js Stable tries to follow the V8 version from latest stable Chrome quite closely (i.e. soon after the corresponding Chrome release), but occasionally a V8 version may be skipped, e.g. if it has problematic API changes.

Node.js LTS branches stay on a fixed V8 version.

jerrysievert• 10 years ago

we just managed to get plv8 tracking against the same v8 versions as node (4.4-4.10).

v8 moves very quickly, and even the redhat/debian package maintainers are still distributing 3.14.

madeofpalk• 10 years ago

Optimisations for ES6 features is great!

Any idea how V8 releases relate to Node (especially now post-io.js)? When could we see these improvements on the server?

ilkkao• 10 years ago

Node.js is easy to compile from sources. Basically when https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/5592 gets merged, all that is needed is

git clone git@github.com:nodejs/node.git; cd node ; git checkout vee-eight-5.0; ./configure; make; make install

to start experimenting.

davej• 10 years ago

Any idea how V8 releases relate to Node (especially now post-io.js)? When could we see these improvements on the server?

April and October are the planned release months for a new major node version AFAIK. The April releases then become LTS releases in October. October releases don't become LTS.

Presumably new major node versions will be cut from the latest stable (or perhaps stable - 1, depending on timing) V8 release.

Might be wrong about this, so I'm open to correction.

jackhack2• 10 years ago

Surely I'm not the only one asking "what is this/should I care?"

(three clicks later...) V8 is a javascript engine that supports web assembly.

positr0n• 10 years ago

To give you more context, it is not just "a" javascript engine. It is the engine behind node.jj, Google Chrome, and others!

tajen• 10 years ago

V8 is the js engine. The one that is so fast because it compiles in JIT, the one that powers Chrome and Node.js, the one that enabled a full range of let's-build-a-full-app-in-a-browser apps.

Also for the worse: the one that lets us include 10Mb of js in a browser.

coldtea3• 10 years ago

The one that is so fast because it compiles in JIT

That's true for all modern JS engines (JavaScriptCore, Edge, SpiderMonkey, v8) and has been for several years (almost a decade).

coldtea3• 10 years ago

Yes, you are probably the only one.

jackhack2• 10 years ago

This may be true, but as an embedded developer my world is quite different from the fullstack work many of the rest of audience here.

I could have phrased it more delicately, but I assure you I wasn't being a smart-alek. There is a steady stream of new/unfamiliar tools discussed here and I find that I'm frequently clicking just to find out what it's all about.

Cthulhu_3• 10 years ago

I'm sure the problem in your case is that apparently the blog is hosted off-site from the v8 project's site; you need to go to the homepage (v8project.blogspot.com) and find a link on the right side to get to https://github.com/v8/v8/wiki, which has a short introduction to what v8 is. It's a bit underwhelming, really.

Already__Taken• 10 years ago

I've heard there's some V8 changes coming down the pipeline that will end up allowing node to use the serialport package without compiling anything native.

Have I heard wrong?

s3th2• 10 years ago

Something related to debugging? Perhaps you came across this thread? https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/2546#issuecomment-1893...

kozak• 10 years ago

Any idea when ES6 modules (via the <module> HTML tag) are coming?

s3th2• 10 years ago

We just sent out an intent to ship this week! [0] They're trickier to implement than other ES6 features since they require coordination with the Blink side of Chromium.

[0] https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink...

NodeJSDude• 10 years ago

Anyone know the V8 version that they are targeting for node.js 6?

There are some sweet features in ES6 V8 4.9 that I would love to start using including optional arguments and array based destructuring.

V8 Release 5.0 (upcoming)

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