First Node.jx 4.x RC delayed to next week

Sep 4, 2015 14:50 GMT  ·  By

The highly anticipated 4.0.0 release of the Node.js server-side JavaScript runtime has been delayed due to common problems in Web development: more bugs.

Node.js 4.0.0 is going to be the first branch that reunites the io.js project back into Node's core.

io.js was started back in January when Node.js contributors, disgruntled at the slow pace at which the project was going, as it was still a 0.x release after so many years, decided to create their own branch of the project and work on it without Joyent's supervision, which they felt was snuffing developer input.

The two projects soon made peace, reuniting later on in the Node.js Foundation, and vowing to reunite in a common release by the end of the year.

As Node.js continued to slowly move forward, the io.js team quickly reached version 2.x and 3.x, and now, after spending most of the summer working together with the Node team, they are ready to unite the two projects into the brand new Node.js 4.x branch.

Node 4.x delayed for next week

A timeline for the 4.x release process was put out 11 days ago, which said that the first 4.x RC would be released on September 3.

Obviously, this has not happened, due to the huge amount of work still needed to smooth out the differences between the older Node.js codebase and the io.js source, which comes with an extravaganza of new features that were not available in Node.

But don't worry, according to Rod Vagg, Node.js project contributor, "If, for some reason, we fail to get it out by end of day on Thursday [September 3rd], Pacific Time, we'll postpone the release until Monday, 7th of September so as to avoid the pain of a weekend release."

As mentioned above, this will be an RC (release candidate). A stable Node.js 4.x release is expected at the end of October.

In the meantime, the older Node.js 0.12.x codebase was moved to a separate GitHub repository, while the main branch now holds a mixture of io.js and Node.js releases.

Also, the team has been working on a new website, which will be launched simultaneously with the Node 4.x RC. If you're curious, the new website is on GitHub, so you can download it and take a look at it yourself.

UPDATE: Node.js 4.x is now available. Apparently, even if they said they'd try to avoid a weekend release, it was a weekend release.