--- title: "Spelunking Node's event loop" publication: "Node Weekly" issue: 368 published_at: "2020-12-10" canonical_url: "https://nodeweekly.com/issues/368" --- Plus new Node and npm releases, and a forgiving Node HTML parser. | #368 — December 10, 2020 [Read on the Web](https://nodeweekly.com/issues/368) Node Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/pbuvwhma5anjsbme1vxe.jpg)](https://nodesource.com/blog/event-loop-utilization-nodejs) [An Introduction to Event Loop Utilization](https://nodesource.com/blog/event-loop-utilization-nodejs) — Trevor Norris of the core Node.js team has put together a neat writeup of what he’s discovered by measuring and tracking what the event loop is doing. Gets very technical fast, but you might enjoy this brief trip to a fundamental piece of the Node runtime. Trevor Norris [Node v15.4.0 (Current) Released](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v15.4.0/) — Nothing huge here, but `child_process` now [supports abort signals](https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/36308), as do [readable streams](https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/36061), the main ICU (Unicode) dependency has been updated, and there’s a _“very experimental and definitely not finished”_ [BroadcastChannel implementation](https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/36271) for worker threads (based upon [the Web feature of the same name](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BroadcastChannel)). Danielle Adams (Node.js Project) [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/cfe64701.png)](https://getstream.io/chat/?utm_campaign=2020_12_10_nodeweekly&utm_medium=promoted_newsletter&utm_source=nodeweekly_promoted) [Build Code and Ship In App Messaging in a Few Hours](https://getstream.io/chat/?utm_campaign=2020_12_10_nodeweekly&utm_medium=promoted_newsletter&utm_source=nodeweekly_promoted) — Stream makes it easy with SDKs and Chat React UI Components. Stream powers Feeds and Chat for over one billion end-users. Stream sponsor [How to Handle Request Validation in Your Express API](https://simonplend.com/how-to-handle-request-validation-in-your-express-api/) — _“You know it’s important, but it’s difficult to pick a validation library, and if you start writing your own custom validation it can quickly start to feel very messy..”_ Simon Plenderleith [npm v7.1.0 Released with Two Small New Features](https://blog.npmjs.org/post/636604708661886976/release-v710) — Two new small but sweet features. We get a new command – `npm set-script` – which lets you create a task in the `scripts` section of `package.json`. `npm exec` now also triggers an interactive subshell for running installed binaries (in the same way `npm run` scripts can). The npm Blog 📗 **Tutorials and Stories** [Serverless Node.js You Can Run Anywhere](https://www.openfaas.com/blog/serverless-nodejs/) — You may have heard of AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, but [OpenFaaS](https://github.com/openfaas/faas) is an interesting open source functions-as-a-service platform you can deploy to your own machines. Here’s how you can use Node with it (and not just functions but Express apps too). Alex Ellis [Automatically Generating Social Share Images Serverlessly](https://www.ryanfiller.com/blog/automatic-social-share-images/) — This is a perfect use case for a serverless function (on _Netlify Functions_ this time) and a great example of post that pulls together a variety of ideas for a creative end result. Ryan Filler [Puppeteer vs Selenium vs Playwright, A Browser Automation Speed Comparison](https://blog.checklyhq.com/puppeteer-vs-selenium-vs-playwright-speed-comparison/) — Spoiler: There are differences in microbenchmarks but in real world scenarios it’s basically a wash. Use whichever suits your use case. Giovanni Rago (Checkly) [10 React Security Best Practices](https://snyk.io/blog/10-react-security-best-practices/?utm_campaign=cooperpress-q4&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=cooperpress-node-weekly&utm_term=react-best-practices&utm_content=react-best-practices) — A checklist to help you and your team find and fix security issues in your React applications. Snyk sponsor [How to Make Your Code Reviewer 'Fall in Love with You'](https://mtlynch.io/code-review-love/) — Not Node specific and the title is a little.. cute(?) but there's plenty of useful insights and ideas in here that I think you'll enjoy it, particularly if you want ['plays well with others'](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/play_well_with_others) on your next report card 😁 Michael Lynch [What's New in Mongoose 5.11: Custom Casting for Paths](http://thecodebarbarian.com/whats-new-in-mongoose-5-11-custom-casting-for-paths.html) Valeri Karpov [10 `git` Aliases for a Faster Workflow](https://snyk.io/blog/10-git-aliases-for-faster-and-productive-git-workflow/) Royee Shemesh (Snyk) [How to Use Docker with Node, A Step-by-Step Tutorial](https://geshan.com.np/blog/2020/11/nodejs-with-docker/) Geshan Manandhar 🛠 Code and Tools supported by [![Okta\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/v1602154330/de7dtktheistsfpqdem4.png)](https://developer.okta.com/?utm_campaign=newsletter_cooperpress_all_multiple_inc_dev_sponsored-section_null&utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=cpc) [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/deljmu2wmtks15fwp6do.jpg)](https://github.com/dominikwilkowski/cfonts) [cfonts: Striking Text Banners for the Terminal](https://github.com/dominikwilkowski/cfonts) — If you want to catch everyone’s attention when they install your npm package (please don’t..) this might fit the bill ;-) Dominik Wilkowski [Nodesource Brings arm64 Support to its Node Binary Distributions](https://nodesource.com/blog/arm64-support-Node.js-binary-distributions) — If you want Node in a package to run on aarch64 with CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Amazon Linux or CloudLinux, NodeSource has what you need. Liz Parody (NodeSource) [htmlparser2 6.0.0: A Forgiving HTML and XML Parser](https://github.com/fb55/htmlparser2) — Consumes documents and calls callbacks, but it can generate a DOM as well. There’s [a live demo here](https://astexplorer.net/#/2AmVrGuGVJ). Felix Böhm [Node.js + Express: An OpenTelemetry Deep Dive](https://lightstep.com/blog/opentelemetry-nodejs-express?utm_campaign=node&utm_source=cooper&utm_medium=Email) Lightstep sponsor [node-oracledb 5.1: An Oracle Database Driver for Node](https://blogs.oracle.com/opal/faster-json-with-node-oracledb-51-and-oracle-database-21s-new-oson-storage-format) — Coincides with the release of Oracle Database 21c which features enhanced JSON functionality and which this Oracle maintained library now supports too. [GitHub repo](https://github.com/oracle/node-oracledb). 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