Takeaways from NodeSummit 2013
Before the memories fade, I wanted to get my thoughts out on this years NodeSummit conference, which took place at the Mission Bay convention center in San Francisco. The run up to the conference was a whirlwind with the LineRate team working extremely hard to support the launch, which included a sponsored workshop, a main stage talk, a hackers lounge, and, most importantly, a new release of LineRate with a bunch of new features, bug fixes, new Node.js APIs, and a foreverfree tier that anyone can download (see linerate.f5.com). Enterprise Node.js My main takeaway from the conference was the overwhelming interestfrom various large enterprises, beyond just the classic posterchildren for Node.js (e.g., Walmart, eBay, etc.)that we've heard about over the last 2 years. I had numerous conversations atthe booth where engineers talked about working within largeorganizations to deploy complex Node.js applications in production,and how they were replacing legacy systems with Node.js. Sideconversations with several prominent Node.js vendors affirmed mysuspicion - Node.js is breaking in to the enterprise in a major way. Node.js Technology Takeaways From a technical perspective, I was also really impressed. First, theNode.js core team is working on some really exciting improvements toNode.js which should dramatically improve performance for many usecases, and greatly improve the Node.js internals. I was alsoimpressed with the technical acumen of the NodeSummit attendees.First, you could see the deep technical interest in the material.Almost all the main stage talks were incredibly well attended. Atmany shows, the hallway conversation is more interesting than what'sgoing on on-stage, but not here. Second, the developers assembled at NodeSummit had an unusually deepunderstanding of their application infrastructure and how it relatesto the network and storage systems. Many people who were doing largeNode deployments really understood the LineRate message and how we fitin to the ecosystem, and how we could make their applications betterand easier to deploy. I was really pleased to see that my talkdiscussing the LineRate product and its Node.js programmability waswell received. It was hard to read the audience because of theblinding bright lights on stage, but I took it as a good sign thatI couldn't even make it back to the booth because I got stoppedin the hallway so many times with questions about LineRate and ourNode.js integration. Overall, I left NodeSummit really excited about the future of Node.js.Over the coming months, I'm especially looking forward to working onall the interesting customer use cases attendees brought to theLineRate team.