Node.js and JS Foundations Are Merging To Form OpenJS (venturebeat.com)

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Node.js and JS Foundations Are Merging To Form OpenJS (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @04:07AM from the major-collaborative-push dept.

The Linux Foundation today unveiled several major collaborative partnerships as it looks to cement the development of various open source projects that power much of the web. From a report: First off, the Node.js Foundation and the JS Foundation, which the Linux Foundation launched in 2016, are merging to form the OpenJS Foundation. The merger between the two chief organizations that focus on JavaScript comes six months after they publicly began to explore such a possibility with their communities. The OpenJS Foundation will focus on hosting and funding activities that support the growth of JavaScript and web technologies, the Linux Foundation said in a press release.

The OpenJS Foundation consists of 29 open source JavaScript projects including jQuery, Node.js, Appium, Dojo, and webpack. The merger is supported by 30 corporate and end user members including Google, Microsoft, IBM, PayPal, GoDaddy, and Joyent that recognize the "interconnected nature of the JavaScript ecosystem, and the importance of providing a neutral home for projects which represent significant shared value," the Linux Foundation said in a prepared statement. Also in the report: The Linux Foundation has created CHIPS Alliance, a project that aims to host and curate open source code relevant to design of chips that power mobile, IoT, and other consumer electronic devices; and the Continuous Delivery Foundation, which aims to serve as a platform for vendors, developers, and users to frequently engage and share insights and best practices to spur the development of open source projects.

It also announced that the GraphQL Foundation is collaborating with Joint Development Foundation to encourage "contributions, stewardship, and a shared investment from a broad group in vendor-neutral events, documentation, tools, and support for the data query language."

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Somebody please flip some kill switches by jtara · 2019-03-12 04:13 · Score: 1

Good. Or not. I guess. Yawn.
But... can somebody over there find the time to flip the kill switch on jQuery Mobile, and other abandoned projects? So that developers don't keep starting projects with libraries that haven't been updated in years?
1. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by jtara · 2019-03-12 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  What I mean by "flip the kill switch" - of course - is not to take the repos and documentation offline. But simply to state - officially and unequivocally - that it is a Dead Parrot.
  jQuery Mobile is definitely in this state. jQuery UI is probably close to it. I am making the assumption that there are other dead birds littering the floor of the cage.
2. Re: Somebody please flip some kill switches by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:33 · Score: 0
  
  Someone needs to flip the kill switch on your ability to post comments
3. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by AndrewFlagg · 2019-03-12 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  nicely said. post the list as well, the top 100 dead parrots please so educators at K-12 and Higher Ed can stop regurgitating vomit in the classrooms. if its a history lesson, then fine, but say so.. some programmers coming out are using dead tech or bleeding tech... i won't hire either.
4. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:00 · Score: 0
  
  Finally we would be able to build Universal applications with jQuery UI!
5. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  I also remember when in 2001 I was hiring C++ developer and one guy who came to our office was talking about .NET and I had no idea what it was about.
  Yes, bleeding tech is not needed! We need only the staff we know.
6. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:07 · Score: 0
  
  I, um, still use parts of jQuery UI. The best file uploader backend is arguably blueimp jQuery File Uploader. I've tried several others but keep coming back to it because it simply works. It has a slight dependency on jQuery UI "base". jQuery UI also has a really nice date picker widget that I haven't found a good replacement for (tried a few "library-agnostic" ones but they all get a pass from me). There are several multiselect replacements out there I use regularly that depend on jQuery UI because of themeroller (there's no good replacement for those at all). If I've already loaded jQuery UI, I'll also use its accordions from time to time. The rest of jQuery UI gets a solid pass from me.
  jQuery UI is sluggish because it churns DOM. If they rewrote and optimized it for performance (and size), people would probably use it again. Also, people complain about jQuery UI's size, but once it is loaded, it loads fast from the browser cache, so I don't get what people complain about there.
7. Re:Somebody please flip some kill switches by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 09:27 · Score: 0
  
  flip the kill switch on javascript and its unholy spawn..
8. Re: Somebody please flip some kill switches by stinkyjak · 2019-03-13 01:05 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you sir.
And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:20 · Score: 0

...the entire infrastructure comes crumbling down the moment someone revokes a package that does something as trivial as add spaces to a string.
1. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:31 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There is a very popular library for parsing command line arguments.
  All told it has 50 dependencies (this is counting sub-dependencies) counting in at over half a megabyte (610kB!).
  To parse command line arguments, which is probably one of the simplest tasks out there.
  Even better, while there are 50 dependencies, there are only 48 packages included: two of the those 50 dependencies are simply different versions, to satisfy versioning requirements of the tree.
  All this is to say that, yes, the packaging system and the overuse of simple third party packages to accomplish simple tasks is still a thing in the JavaScript community. Some of those dependencies are literal one-liners, where the various packaging metadata is larger than the actual JavaScript code.
2. Re:And yet... by xack · 2019-03-12 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  One day someone will hack a critical package and we will have a Wannacry level event powered by JavaScript.
https://openjsf.org/ by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:21 · Score: 0

https://openjsf.org/
I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:33 · Score: 2

interconnected nature of the JavaScript ecosystem
So every page you visit relies on this vast interconnected web of javascript, originating from places you as a user have no reason to trust.
There's too much javascript in webpages now, and every damned site wants to call out to a dozen other sites which run scripts ... and why should I be trusting every random asshole linked to by a website I visit to run scripts? Because I implicitly trust them because I'm sure the website operators are nice people?
Sorry, no, but third party javascript is blocked ruthlessly, because I have no reason to trust those third parties. I don't trust most websites to directly run scripts, why would I trust everyone they link to?
Now we have this massive connection of javascript which nobody really can explain what it all does, but we should just trust it?
Sorry, I want less javascript in my life, not more.
1. Re:I see this as a problem ... by jellomizer · 2019-03-12 05:00 · Score: 1
  
  Now I agree linking to external Javascript sites, just doesn't make much sense. As a website owner, you don't know if the end user would have access to connect to that site or not, as well you are trusting that site to be running for your site to run. I would rather put these libraries like jquery and angular on my own server and reference them myself from my server.
  However the Web Today isn't like it was 20+ years ago. We need advanced client side processing to keep bandwidth and server utilization down. Back in the old days, when you wanted to save a form, or load additional data. A full screen refresh needed to happen, or you are using frames which has its own limitations. Now when you click reply that text box doesn't need to interact with the server until you hit that save button, and when you hit the save only the data that you need to save is saved.
  When used correctly Javascript actually increases your browsing speed. The problem is not too many people can do it correctly, and there is a lot of really crappy (Business owners nephew, who can code HTML) code. Coded together with a bunch of Stack Exchange Examples, without any understanding on what is actually happening on their end.
  Now as a Language Javascript is clumsy (much like PHP) and inconsistent and missing a lot of straight forward features, such as a sleep command. However there isn't many other options for Client Side Browser coding then Javascript that is widely supported across browsers.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
2. Re:I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:11 · Score: 0
  
  When used correctly Javascript actually increases your browsing speed.
  And vastly reduces security.
  I have a strict policy ... third party javascript is always blocked, first party javascript is blocked until I deem your site important enough to me to try enabling it.
  Javascript is a persistent source of security issues, so I'm not going to trust random sites pulling it in from third parties.
  Letting every site you visit run scripts is stupid. Letting them pull in 20 friends who also want to run scripts is just fucking idiotic.
  If this stuff is so important, it needs to come from exactly one authoritative source, and none of this "Oh, I just made a few changes" shit ... I don't trust your "few changes", why would I?
  Javascript is why the entire security model of the interwebs is completely broken and ridiculous.
3. Re:I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:16 · Score: 0
  
  Use rollup and bundle your entire site's javascript files into one and have rollup remove all the parts you don't need.
  I use Angular 2 (5MB of js) bundle it use rollup and end up with less than 2MB js total for Angular and everything else in a single file. Good browsers will cache it and only use 33 bytes download to see if it changed when reloading.
  No external js needed.
  So it has gotten so easy at this point, there really isn't a reason to not do it correctly.
4. Re:I see this as a problem ... by doconnor · 2019-03-12 06:25 · Score: 0
  
  The advantage of using 3rd party sites is that the client can download the 5MB of Angular 2 once and use it across many sites, reducing bandwidth over all.
5. Re: I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  Which, if that site is compromised, will result in every site that uses that compromised library being at risk.
  Yuk
6. Re:I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 07:21 · Score: 0
  
  We need advanced client side processing to keep bandwidth and server utilization down.
  
  No we don't, but thanks for speaking on everyone's behalf. Simpler, less crap-filled webpages would also accomplish that.
  
  Back in the old days, when you wanted to save a form, or load additional data.
  
  Yes. This is called "proper validation" where the client data is implicitly untrusted. This is good, and the round-trip nature should make you think about constantly minimizing what crap you send.
  
  A full screen refresh needed to happen
  
  A full screen refresh is absolutely *nothing* compared to the wasteful gymnastics a browser does in order to support JS wrecking the DOM tree for some stupid effects.
7. Re: I see this as a problem ... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 09:13 · Score: 0
  
  No, that's useless. 5mbs is nothing. The real reason to link external is you're dumb and don't care about the ensuing botnet that you won't be held responsible for.
For clariffication by ArhcAngel · 2019-03-12 04:35 · Score: 1

Will this fusion be more like a Gotenks or Gogeta fusion?

--
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
1. Re:For clariffication by Chris+Mattern · 2019-03-12 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  Will this fusion be more like a Gotenks or Gogeta fusion?
  It'll be like a Yu-Gi-Oh fusion.
2. Re:For clariffication by jellomizer · 2019-03-12 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  I sacrifice my node.js and jquery, To fuse into OpenJS, I put my Dojo in defense mode, then I will end my turn.
  The audience (in the show) gasps at such a bold course of action.
  While we as the audience of the show, have no clue on what he did.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
3. Re: For clariffication by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 09:16 · Score: 0
  
  It's going to like fusion of plutonium when it blows up in everyone's face :(
  A big shitstorm plus a 1000(man-) year cleanup.
Joylent by darkain · 2019-03-12 04:41 · Score: 1

Who the hell is Joylent!? I know who Joyent is, but not Joylent.
1. Re:Joylent by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 04:45 · Score: 0
  
  Soylent's cousin, before she got introduced to the Blend-Tec.
2. Re:Joylent by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 09:29 · Score: 0
  
  I'm giving up JavaScript for lent.
Is JS becoming worse than Perl? by xanthos · 2019-03-12 05:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

And this is coming from an old Perl Hacker. The biggest gripe against Perl has always been that it is a write once maintain never type of language. Unless done correctly, and it can be done correctly, it can be near impossible for anyone but the original author to maintain. And sometimes event the original author goes WTF? when they look back at stuff they had previously written. Been there done that. But can anyone say that JS is better? Between the dependencies and the convolutions taken to interact with the various DOM elements it gets ugly very very quickly. I get it that the browser sandbox it is runs in has limitations, but why hasn't a better alternative taken hold? In fact, why is anyone encouraging using this ClusterF of a language on servers via Node.js?

--
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
1. Re:Is JS becoming worse than Perl? by HornWumpus · 2019-03-12 07:49 · Score: 0
  
  A fuckwit can make a huge mess with any tool.
  Only fuckwits run Javascript on the server.
  Game over.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
2. Re: Is JS becoming worse than Perl? by hey00 · 2019-03-12 10:36 · Score: 2
  
  People encourage using it on servers because bad developers outweigh good ones by a wide margin, and all concentrated on js while good ones are spread on many languages.
  Js is an easy language. Js with html and css is the simplest graphic api, and it's cross platform and require no installation to share your application.
  Therefore it attracted most of the bad developers and those with no formal computer science education. I d bet that the proportion of web devs who don't know how to write a sort of an algorithm for a mildly complex problem is far higher than in any other language.
  And npmjs made everything worse by making it even easier for non devs and bad devs to get into programming by encouraging them to rely on insane amounts of near trivial libraries and share their own crap code.
  And those devs think it's a good idea to run js on servers, and they are numerous enough to successfully push that idea.
3. Re:Is JS becoming worse than Perl? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 11:15 · Score: 0
  
  A fuckwit can make a huge mess with any tool.
  Only fuckwits run Javascript on the server.
  Game over.
  Soon it will only be fuckwits who don't run JS on the server!
I'm getting paranoid by Maelwryth · 2019-03-12 06:27 · Score: 1

"interconnected nature of the JavaScript ecosystem, and the importance of providing a neutral home for projects which represent significant shared value,"
Which I am reading as,"The largest players always win unless we completely jump the shark and do another Internet Explorer fiasco allowing another player in the field." I mean, really, neutral homes are all well and good but when you declare them after owning the house it reminds me of equality by equality vs equality by equity.

--
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Full-Stack means DBA, Unix Admin, Networking, etc. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 08:01 · Score: 0

and coding the backends and front ends.
If all you do is code, but don't do network, security, application, architecture and infrastructure setups, you are just a javascript programmer.
Abandon all hope by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 09:22 · Score: 1

They've merged to form Nodjla, Code of Nightmares.
By Neruos by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-12 12:20 · Score: 0

stop deleting my posts.
Where's Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-13 01:18 · Score: 0

I find it interesting that Oracle isn't mentioned in the Node.JS and JS Foundation backing. As someone currently dealing with Oracle's new JRE licensing issues I've recently started looking more closely into replacing Java services with Node.JS services and Swing/Webstart/JavaFX applications (yes there are a large number of those used internally) with Electron. If our POCs work out we could very easily find ourselves moved completely off Java.
1. Re: Where's Oracle? by stinkyjak · 2019-03-13 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  Or maybe .net core for an open source and platform independent solution.