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Node.js Digest #19: TypeScript Is Moving to Go, Node.js on Discord, Goodbye Corepack Again

Node.js Digest #19 by Oleksandr Zinevych

Hey, community! The Avenga team here with our regular monthly digest of the most interesting news from the world of Node.js and everything related to backend JavaScript development.

This time we've prepared a new format — we'd love to hear your impressions and comments: how do you like this style?

If You're Really Short on Time

While we're gradually moving toward replacing Node.js engineers with AI, the situation is still stable for now. But here are a few important things that happened in March:

  • The TypeScript compiler is planned to be rewritten in Go.

  • Node.js now has an official community channel on Discord.

  • Node.js is transitioning to using JSON configuration files for managing new features through feature flags. This capability is still experimental (v23.10.0), but hopefully we'll soon stop having to type those giant commands in the terminal.

  • Corepack will be removed from future versions of Node.js.

Deno Did It Better

After many years of ignoring the inevitable, Node.js finally decided to add basic TypeScript support. About time, right? Well, better late than never.

The Deno team, of course, couldn't pass up the opportunity and immediately published a post on their blog with a detailed breakdown of how exactly this TypeScript "support" works in Node.js (spoiler: with a bunch of limitations).

But the most interesting part — they didn't forget to remind everyone why TypeScript is implemented much better in Deno. And the key difference?

Full type checking. Because in Deno, they thought about this from the very start.

NPM Under Attack Again

Yep, Lazarus is back — because apparently, hacking NPM never gets old for them.

The hackers showed their "creativity" once again and found new ways to slip malicious code into unsuspecting developers' projects. And this proves once more: NPM is still the Wild West of package managers.

Yes, the security community is trying to clean up the aftermath, but let's be honest — next month we'll probably be reading about Lazarus 3.0, 4.0, or maybe even 57.0.

Maybe it's time for NPM to stop playing whack-a-mole and actually build proper defenses? But real developers don't take the easy path — every dependency install is an adventure!

Something to Read

🔹 There are so many runtimes now that it's hard to tell which feature is supported where. If you're confused too — don't panic and check out runtime-compat.

🔹 Cloudflare is also contributing to Node.js, particularly through supporting Ada URL.

🔹 In the AI hype world, it's worth staying up to date on various libraries for AI applications. You've probably seen and heard of some of them already, while others might be new.

🔹 If you're thinking about moving from Node.js to something else, Elixir might be worth considering. Dylan Moore shared his experience switching to Elixir and his thoughts on why it could be a better choice than Node.js.

🔹 A story about a bizarre bug. And about how initial signs and indicators of a problem can be misleading — from Jacob Voytko.

🔹 Diana MacDonald recommends taking a look at Zod and getting your data and types in order if you haven't done so already.

Something to Watch

🔹 John Hammond's review of the recent Next.js vulnerability.

🔹 If you haven't used Serverless yet and want to understand what it is and its advantages, it's worth checking out Patrick Meiler's talk.

🔹 Haven't talked about plain SQL in a while? Time to refresh your knowledge — Jeff Shute on SQL in the 21st century.

🔹 MCP is in the spotlight right now — see how it works along with Matt Pocock.

Updates and releases:

🔹 Bun v1.2.7 — traditional fixes, improved Node.js compatibility, and other improvements.

🔹 Express v5.1.0, Nest v11.0.12, Deno v2.2.6, Mongoose v8.13.1, pnpm v10.7, piscina v4.9.2.

A Few More Interesting Things

🔹 GitHub's practices for learning new codebases and new projects.

🔹 A bit about Netflix and the impression entity they actively use in their applications.

🔹 Security practices at Slack.

🔹 About graph databases and RAG on the WeAreDevelopers channel, in a conversation with Andreas Kolleger from Neo4j:

🔹 A bit more about popular open-source tools for working with AI from ByteByteGo:

🔹 How to build a game engine right in the browser, by David Whitney:

Meme Corner

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