It wasn’t done previously because there was no advantage - the go proxy lead to
performance gains for the python runtime and a few others iirc but was the same
for node. There was also no support for intra container concurrency.
-r
> On Jan 9, 2020, at 8:04 PM, Dascalita Dragos <ddrag...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The argument that the way this new runtime is constructed is very different
> from the existing nodejs one, seems a strong one in my opinion to consider
> a dedicated repo.
>
> The unclear part to me is whether it would make sense to consider applying
> the “action loop” pattern to the existing NodeJs Runtime. Are there any
> thoughts on this ?
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 12:43 PM Michele Sciabarra <mich...@sciabarra.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>> I developed a new openwhisk runtime with native support for typescript as
>> part of my work at Nimbella and I intend to donate this code the Apache
>> Openwhisk project. The new runtime works for node/javascript as well. Since
>> typescript is compiled, I reused the compilation support from the "action
>> loop" proxy. This runtime is intended as a new action kind, which can
>> support both node and typescript.
>> This email is to solicit feedback for the next 48 hrs on the question of
>> new repo vs reuse the existing repo for node.js. I will decide based on
>> community feedback and follow up with the next steps.
>> Features of the new runtime:
>> - supports precompilation, meaning you use the runtime as a compiler to
>> "precompile" the sources. Compilation here means translating typescript to
>> javascript, resolve the package.json downloading all the node_modules and
>> producing a zip that includes everything ready to run.
>> You do this with a command like:
>>
>> docker run openwhisk/action-typescript-v3.7 <src.zip >bin.zip
>>
>> then you can create the action using bin.zip.
>> - supports on the fly compilation, so that an action made up of typescript
>> sources will also work.
>> - supports debugging, but in a different way than adobe/wskdebug. If you
>> set an environment variable __OW_DEBUG_PORT it will start the runtime
>> listening on a port for a debugger to attach.
>>
>> - an action must always "export" the main function. So in typescript you
>> need to do: `export function main(args) { .. }' and in javascript
>> `export.main = function args(...)`. I did manage to make sure a single file
>> with 'function main(args)' works but it does not work when there are
>> multiple files zipped. I think the current apache openwhisk nodejs runtime
>> uses eval, I use a `require` to import action code.
>>
>> Since this is a new language runtime (typescript) and also differs in the
>> node.js support from the existing apache openwhisk nodejs runtime, I am
>> proposing a new apache repo to host this code. It's possible to include the
>> new sources in the existing node.js runtime repo to avoid adding yet
>> another repository, but may be confusing since the code base is very
>> different.
>>
>> --
>> Michele Sciabarra
>> mich...@sciabarra.com
>>
