JavaScript is an enormously popular programming language, because of its unique place as the programming language of the web. Outside of that domain, JS is barely a blip compared to other dynamic languages like Python and Ruby. Outside of the browser, JavaScript is lacking something critical: a significant standard library. Thanks to a powerful standard library and a common module system, sophisticated applications can be written in Python and run unchanged on Windows, Mac and Linux and even across different interpreters including Jython and IronPython. The CommonJS project (formerly ServerJS) is building up a standard library API to give privileged JavaScript applications this same kind of interop. Imagine a server-side webapp that runs equally well in Rhino, SpiderMonkey and v8. We're getting there. Even better, those apps can easily share modules between the browser and the server, which is something you don't get in other languages. In this talk, I'll provide quick background on the project and demos of several implementations of the emerging standard, including how CommonJS impacts Mozilla's Jetpack and Bespin projects.

1. CommonJS
JavaScript Everywhere
Kevin Dangoor, Kris Kowal, Tom Robinson
jsconf.eu — 2009-11-07

2. Kevin Dangoor
Mozilla Labs

3. Kris Kowal
FastSoft, Inc.

4. problem + CommonJS = solution

6. There are many ways
to do these things
in JavaScript.
There is no standard
way to do these things
in JavaScript.

52. import json
import hashlib var file = require("file");
import sys var system = require("system");
var md5 = require("md5");
def main(args):
raw_data = open(args[1]).read() exports.main = function(args) {
strings = json.loads(raw_data) var rawData = file.read(args[1]);
h = hashlib.md5() var strings = JSON.parse(rawData);
var hashed = md5.hash(strings.join(""));
for s in strings: print(hashed.toString(16));
h.update(s) };
print h.hexdigest() if (module.id == require.main) {
exports.main(system.args);
if __name__ == "__main__": }
main(sys.argv)

53. bash-3.2$ python simple.py testdata.json
900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72
bash-3.2$ js simple.js testdata.json
900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000818.html

54. CommonJS
You can make a difference!
http://commonjs.org/

55. Q&A
http://commonjs.org/