--- title: "Does Node need a mascot of its own?" publication: "Node Weekly" issue: 502 published_at: "2023-09-19" canonical_url: "https://nodeweekly.com/issues/502" --- Plus Node 20.7, and should we embed SQLite into Node? | #​502 — September 19, 2023 [Read on the Web](https://nodeweekly.com/issues/502) Together with [![AppSignal logo\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,e_trim,w_700,h_120/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/lme8p344dw1aodshz9px.png)](https://blog.appsignal.com/2023/08/30/tracking-errors-in-a-nodejs-application.html?utm_source=node-weekly-sponsored&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2023-08-30) ![Node.js Weekly](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/v1653576619/lgfqinzbdqttwmhvljxb.png) [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/lq6g27i0kzbaz3mjvos7.jpg)](https://github.com/nodejs/admin/issues/828) [Does Node.js Need a Mascot?](https://github.com/nodejs/admin/issues/828) — Go has its cute gopher, Deno has a dinosaur, Bun has, well.. a bun, but what does Node have? Nothing official, as such, and Matteo Collina ponders whether we should change that. Most of the suggestions seem tongue in cheek, but the [Node homepage](https://nodejs.org/en) does feel a little bare without _something_.. Matteo Collina et al. [Node v20.7.0 (Current) Released](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.7.0) — A less feature-packed release than usual, but `npm` gets bumped to the recently released v10.1, you can use `process.getSourceMapsEnabled` to detect if source maps are enabled, [multiple `--env-file` declarations are supported](https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/49542) (where each file will override the previous one, as necessary), plus the usual entourage of bug fixes. Ulises Gascón 💡 [Node v18.18.0 (LTS)](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v18.18.0) has also been released and introduces the `--import` flag for pre-loading ESM modules, like how `--require` does for CommonJS modules. [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/d8838928.png)](https://blog.appsignal.com/2023/08/30/tracking-errors-in-a-nodejs-application.html?utm_source=node-weekly-sponsored&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2023-08-30) [Tracking Errors in a Node.js Application](https://blog.appsignal.com/2023/08/30/tracking-errors-in-a-nodejs-application.html?utm_source=node-weekly-sponsored&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2023-08-30) — Bugs in production slow down velocity and often affect the complete trajectory of your release roadmap. In this article, we'll look at how to make tracking errors and fixing bugs in your Node.js application more convenient, automated, and safe. AppSignal sponsor [Matteo's Thoughts on Bun](https://adventures.nodeland.dev/archive/my-thoughts-on-bun/) — As the creator of Fastify and a Node.js TSC member, it’s interesting to see what Matteo thinks of alternative runtime [Bun.](https://bun.sh/) He finds it exciting but does not consider it to be a ‘drop-in replacement’ yet, especially as it does not support Fastify.. OK, [as of Bun 1.0.2, it does.](https://bun.sh/blog/bun-v1.0.2) Matteo Collina _ASIDES:_ - What do you think about [embedding SQLite in Node?](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/49663) There's little consensus so far, but it's an interesting discussion. - If you want to [🐦 support someone](https://twitter.com/yagiznizipli/status/1703813607127978133) doing a lot of important performance work for Node.js, how about nominating Yagiz Nizipli (GitHub user `anonrig`) [as a GitHub Star?](https://stars.github.com/nominate/) - Looking out for a better coding font? Matej Latin has [an analysis of 5 monospaced fonts that include coding ligatures.](https://betterwebtype.com/5-monospaced-fonts-with-coding-ligatures/) [Securing Node Apps by Analyzing Real-World Command Injection Examples](https://www.nodejs-security.com/blog/securing-your-nodejs-apps-by-analyzing-real-world-command-injection-examples) — If there’s a vulnerability in an npm package, there’s a bad actor looking to take advantage of it. A particularly nasty vulnerability is when code can be manipulated to run unintended and arbitrary commands. Liran explains the ramifications of such command injections and shows off a real world example. Liran Tal [Serverless Bun vs Node: Benchmarking on AWS Lambda](https://medium.com/@mitchellkossoris/serverless-bun-vs-node-benchmarking-on-aws-lambda-ecd4fe7c2fc2) — Following the recent release of Bun 1.0, Mitchell ran some tests to determine if the updated runtime is a legitimate contender for serverless environments like AWS Lambda. Mitchell Kossoris [A Developer’s Guide to Getting Started with Temporal](https://t.mp/3ZimhMG) — Use this TypeScript SDK guide to see how Temporal OSS delivers durable execution for your services and applications. Temporal Technologies sponsor [Playwright API Testing with Zod](https://timdeschryver.dev/blog/playwright-api-testing-with-zod) — [Zod](https://zod.dev/) is a TypeScript-first schema declaration and validation library. Tim Deschryver ▶[Why You Shouldn't Use EventEmitter for Async Operations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7Ji9LmG9o) Matteo Collina [How to Use Node.js to SSH into Remote Servers](https://bipinparajuli.com.np/blog/shh-node) Bipin Parajuli 🛠 Code & Tools [Chrono 2.7: A Natural Language Date Parser](https://github.com/wanasit/chrono) — Give it a string like “today”, “last Friday”, “2 weeks from now”, or even an entire date and time, and it’ll come up with a date object to suit. Wanasit Tanakitrungruang [depcheck: A Tool to Check for Unused Dependencies](https://github.com/depcheck/depcheck) — A command line tool that analyzes the dependencies in a project to see how each dependency is used, which dependencies are ‘useless’, and which are missing from `package.json`. You can run it with `npx depcheck` Djordje Lukic and Junle Li [node-diskusage 1.2: Cross-Platform Disk Usage Statistics](https://github.com/jduncanator/node-diskusage) — Implements platform specific bindings to obtain disk usage information (available space, physically free space, and total space) on Windows and POSIX platforms. jduncanator [workerpool 6.5: Offload Tasks to a Pool of Workers](https://github.com/josdejong/workerpool) — A long established thread pool library that works not only on Node but also in the browser. Jos de Jong [SMOB: Safe Merging of Objects and Arrays](https://github.com/tada5hi/smob) — A zero dependency library to safe merge objects and arrays with customizable behavior. Peter Placzek 📰 Classifieds 💻 Hired makes job hunting easy-instead of chasing recruiters, companies approach you with salary details up front. [Create a free profile now](https://hired.com/join/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_campaign=%28b2c%29%28l-all%29%28r-all%29%28cooper-nodeweekly%29&utm_content=find-your-next-job). --- 🐘 Postgres user? [Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/) is our sister newsletter focused entirely on the Postgres ecosystem. --- 📅 If you're introducing AI and ML technologies into your programming, or intend to, check out [the AI Engineer Summit](https://www.ai.engineer/summit) taking place October 8-10 in San Francisco. If you can't attend in person, you can get a free remote ticket. [i18n-iso-countries: i18n for ISO 3166-1 Country Codes](https://github.com/michaelwittig/node-i18n-iso-countries) — Supports 75 different languages and lets you convert between [ISO 3166 representations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1#Officially_assigned_code_elements) in both alpha and numeric forms. Michael Wittig [fusion.ssg 1.2: A Minimal Framework for Static Sites](https://fusionssg.com/) — If React may be overkill for your simple, static project, but you’d still like to use JSX/TSX components, this framework might be all you need. Here’s a [video demo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuoOGCEs1gk) Jeff Schwartz [stale-dep: A CLI Tool to Check if Your `node_modules` is Stale](https://github.com/sxzz/stale-dep) — You can try it out right now with `npx stale-dep`. Kevin Deng - [node-google-spreadsheet 4.1](https://github.com/theoephraim/node-google-spreadsheet) ↳ API wrapper for Google Sheets. - [ics 3.5](https://github.com/adamgibbons/ics) – iCalendar (ics) generation library. - [MongoDB Driver for Node 6.1](https://github.com/mongodb/node-mongodb-native/releases/tag/v6.1.0) - [Stripe Node.js Library 13.6](https://github.com/stripe/stripe-node) **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. _Thanks!_ --- **Sponsorship:** Email `[kristina@cooperpress.com](mailto:kristina@cooperpress.com)` for details. --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom [Cancel your subscription](https://nodeweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*) or [change your address](https://nodeweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*).