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What Is Deno and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?

Jeremy Morgan on May 16, 2020

Deno is a hot new runtime that may replace Node.js. Everyone's talking about it like it's the next big thing. It likely is. Here's why. W...

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Ishan Rayeen • May 16 '20

I just realised the name Deno is actually made by re arranging Node. Super cool

Michiel Hendriks • May 17 '20

Node actually stands for: No Deno

Ishan Rayeen • May 17 '20

And Deno actually stands for: Delete Node

venture • May 17 '20

Ande Node actually stands for: No Delete Node

Moshe Harush • May 17 '20

And the web server oak it's re arranging of koa (node freamwork).

Zach Rosenberger • May 17 '20

I just realized that from your comment! This rearranging of the letters is also known as an anagram

Lucas Bleme • May 16 '20 • Edited

Well, having a single executable to run would be really nice, but it is not clear yet how this single executable is going to be packaged/generated. Pretty cool!

Has anyone given a try?

Amin • May 17 '20

Yes, I even have made a Docker image to help test Deno without installing it.

In the process, I have discovered that Deno is awesome because a single executable makes the installation pretty easy on most modern systems.

So no need for a ton of shared libraries or to have many interpreters and compilers installed to bake the Deno interpreter.

If you want to give it a try you can use it here (for Docker users): hub.docker.com/r/aminnairi/deno

🦄N B🛡 • May 16 '20

Yes.

Lucas Bleme • May 16 '20

Any thoughts on this single executable file generation process? :)

🦄N B🛡 • May 16 '20

No.

Julian Mojico • May 17 '20

That's really interesting. You should write a review.

Peyton McGinnis • May 16 '20

The best thing about deno is the dinosaur. Pretty adorable little guy.

Felix Terkhorn • May 17 '20 • Edited

Time will tell us what sort of program execution speed and memory efficiency is (hopefully) gained by using Deno. For now, it's worth taking a quick look at some of the benchmarks available on the main site.

deno.land/benchmarks

I haven't gone searching around for any independent benchmarks yet, nor am I motivated enough to write my own 😉, but it'll be nice to see how the community talks about Deno's perf in the coming few months. Although I'm a 🦀 heavy rust user 🦀, I don't assume that the new bindings to V8 are a silver bullet.

Thanks for contributing the article!