This article will give you a basic understanding of what Deno is, the value this technology adds, and where it lacks at the moment. Also, I’ll share some thoughts about adopting it.
Deno is a new (version 1.0 just came out) JavaScript runtime, created by the Node.js creator and designed to overcome several design flaws from Node.js and add improvements on top of that. A runtime is a “box” where code can run, and it’s a vital part of a system because it imposes certain restrictions around applications built inside of it and dictates a tremendous amount of the development experience and tradeoffs involved in creating the system.
Before checking Deno’s benefits, we need to understand which problems it aims to address.
On this great talk, Ryan Dahl, the creator of Node.js, talks about some of the regrets in the development of Node.js
Amongst them, I’d like to highlight the following:
After reading this, you might be wondering: “Why not just fix these issues in Node?”. Deno’s blog answers this question: “Due to the large number of users that Node has, it is difficult and slow to evolve the system.”
Another great benefit of using Deno is the complexity around developing JavaScript applications with Node. There is just massive tooling involved, which creates confusion amongst new developers and headaches to more experienced ones for having to keep up with new versions of each package.
Some of Deno’s most important benefits compared to Node are:
All these benefits translate to mainly two things. First, you significantly improve developer experience, thus leading to potentially shorter development cycles, and second, you reduce the risk of downtime and data loss due to vulnerabilities from unsecured scripts.
#deno #node #javascript #typescript #web-development