Express 1.0beta

Yesterday I released Express 1.0.0beta, a Sinatra inspired Node web development framework.

The beta is a near re-write consisting of roughly 300 commits, introducing new features, removing legacy code, and improving documentation. Express now runs on the Connect middleware framework, which replaces the previous concept of a Plugin. The performance of express has also been optimized and can now respond much faster than previous versions.

Connect

By abstracting the Express Plugin’s to a specific middleware framework, the community can now build on, and utilize this functionality to power their own frameworks. Connect currently provides:

bodyDecoder Buffers and parses json and urlencoded request bodies (extenable)
conditionalGet Provides 304
errorHandler Handles exceptions thrown, or passed through the stack
debug Outputs debugging console to all html responses
format Handles url path extensions or
gzip Compresses response bodies with gzip executable
lint Aids in middleware development
logger Provides common logger support, and custom log formats
methodOverride Provides faux HTTP method support via the _method param
responseTime Responds with the X-Response-Time header in milliseconds
compiler Supports arbitrary static compilation of files, currently supports less and sass.
cacheManifest Provides cache manifest for offline apps
jsonrpc Provides JSON-RPC 2.0 support
staticProvider Serves static files
cookieDecoder Provides cookie parsing support
session Provides session support
cache Provides memory caching
pubsub Publish subscribe messaging support
repl Read Evaluate Print Loop attached to
vhost Virtual host support

Performance Enhancements

Express is now much faster, with a concurrency of 80, and 8000 it can easily serve the typical “Hello World” response with ~10,000 requests per second on my machine. Ruby’s Thin (1.2.7) by comparison serves ~6500 rps. Finally by adding Sinatra in the mix I get ~1900 rps.

These numbers are to be taken lightly of course, and are simply relative, to re-cap:

Express        ~10,000
Rack/Thin      ~6,500
Rack/Sinatra   ~1,900

Graph for fun:

express vs sinatra

Documentation Overhaul

The new docs include a 1.x Migration Guide which should cover most of the changes that would be required to get you up and running. Another thing worth mentioning is that the docs are now generated via Markdown, and are located within ./docs which provides an easy way for developers to contribute docs.

I also have a Contrib Guide for those who are interested in helping Express out, and of course a completely revamped developers Guide.

For those who like to dig in deep and check out internals, my dox project generates the annotated source for Express.

Application Generating Executable

Express now ships with the express executable, creating app skeletons with a single tiny command:

$ express

thats it! of course view —help for more information.

Future of Express

From now on Express is clutter-free, no more dependencies on random extension libraries, no more high level http client library, just simply performance, routing, responding, configuration, and views. Feel free to post an issue if you find a bug, or have suggestions for focused features that you would like to see in the framework.

Looking forward to 1.0, Happy Express-ing everyone :)