Red Hat was recently at NodeConf EU, which was held on November 4-6th 2024. This year was a change of venue back to Waterford Castle where we first attended NodeConf EU way back in 2015. It was a cozy atmosphere with lots of opportunities to catch up with other Node.js contributors.
Over the 3 days, there was a mix of talks in the morning and workshops in the afternoon which is a great format for learning without getting too overwelmed.
Following the conference there was a 2 day Node.js Collaborator summit in Dublin, hosted by baseline (many thanks for providing the space!). Together it was a full week of talking about Node.js with other contributors who are just as exited about Node.js as we are.
Standout moments
All of the talks were great this year, and as always, it's hard to choose just a few standouts. A couple of the team favorites were "Cleaning Up After Yourself", "AI-Powered Malware Hunting at Scale," and "Let’s Build A Custom ChatGPT Like Bot With AI APIs" as well as a number of the talks diving into the progress made on improving ESM and CJS compatibility.
"Cleaning Up After Yourself" introduced us to a proposed addition to the JavaScript language that will make error handling easier (the using syntax). There is so much going on in the JavaScript ecosystem that it is hard to keep up with everything, and this talk was a great way to learn about this proposal.
"AI-Powered Malware Hunting at Scale" delved into using AI and Large Language Models to tame what can be a very noisy set of signals about potential malware in npm packages. The use of AI helps transform the raw data into something that is more consumable and useful. It was interesting as a real-world example of where Large Language Models are being used in production today.
Additionally, "Let’s Build A Custom ChatGPT Like Bot With AI APIs" stood out for its practical insights into leveraging AI APIs to create personalized conversational agents. The talk provided a clear roadmap for integrating custom data with large language models, making it accessible for developers looking to enhance user interactions. The hands-on approach and real-world applications discussed were particularly enlightening, showcasing the potential of AI in building tailored solutions.
Having said that, all of the talks were great this year and are worth watching. We are looking forward to the recordings being available.
Red Hat involvement
Red Hatters delivered the talks "A Personal Journey of how JS/NODE.js Changed My Life" and "Node.js - What’s new and what’s next". It was great that the "What's new and what's next talk" was early in the schedule as it introduced some of the recent new features in Node.js that other Node.js contributors went into more detail in later presentations. Overall we think it was a nice setup to a number of the topics througout the conference. The talk "A Personal Journey of how JS/NODE.js Changed My Life" was a nice reminder how important an inclusive and welcoming community can be to people just getting involved.
Collaborator Summit
The collaborator summit in Dublin was held over the two days following NodeConf EU and had a good mix of sessions ranging from what kind of funding the project might go after to technical deep dives on module loading customization and CJS/ESM interoperability. You can check out the full agenda here. As always it was a good opportunity to meet other collaborators in person and catch up on what was new since the last collaborator summit. If you contribute to the Node.js project and have not yet been to a collaborator summit, I strongly suggest you try and get to one in the future. The in person discussions and team building is invaluable.
Hope to see you at the next summit!
Where to learn more
Learn more about what Red Hat is up to on the Node.js front:
