A new organization has emerged to spearhead the use of JavaScript and Node.js in the enterprise.
The EnterpriseJS Coalition is a community, content-sharing platform, and upcoming event series dedicated to raising awareness for and encouraging JavaScript and Node.js deployment in enterprise organizations. Founded by Node support company NodeSource, along with Intuit and PayPal, the platform is intended for JavaScript developers in large organizations to share experiences, lessons and best practices.
“The rise of JavaScript in the enterprise is reaching a stage of maturity where the demand for knowledge and best practices on how to scale JavaScript inside large, multi-team IT organizations is reaching unprecedented levels,” said Joe McCann, cofounder and CEO of NodeSource. “EnterpriseJS is an extension of the greater JavaScript and open-source communities, and is primarily focused on elevating server-side JavaScript development for the enterprise through collaboration, conversation and education.”
EnterpriseJS is launching with a multi-city speaking event starting in Austin on May 21, along with a content platform to share slides and videos on the JavaScript and Node.js presentations with enterprise developers.
Over the past two years, Intuit and PayPal have each invested in their own large-scale Node.js deployments, working with NodeSource to implement the runtime in their back-end infrastructure. According to Danese Cooper, senior director of open source at PayPal, the coalition came about as a way to bring companies together around JavaScript and Node.js.
“The idea for the Enterprise JS coalition was basically born at NodeDay 2014 during a discussion about JavaScript meetups and how there was a lack of focus on problems encountered at larger enterprise companies using JavaScript at scale,” she said. “We all thought it would be great to formalize a practice around sharing knowledge. We want to promote advanced best practices and learn lessons from bleeding-edge integrations and complex use cases, so that everybody wins by having wider knowledge about how to use the tools well, which will lead to their increased use.”
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NodeSource’s McCann said EnterpriseJS is intended to work as a complement to the Node.js Foundation—the open governance body of Node.js—of which PayPal is a founding member and NodeSource is an active contributor. He sees the coalition and foundation working together going forward.
“The EnterpriseJS coalition is building a community of peers,” said McCann. “The primary focus of this group is sharing and growing resources for the emerging enterprise JavaScript. We will likely interact individually with organizations like the Node.js Foundation, though if the Node.js Foundation needs to seek out guidance from an organized community of large-scale JavaScript deployments, the EnterpriseJS community will be a likely candidate to reach out to.”
As for why these companies founded the coalition, NodeSource cofounder and president Dan Shaw explained, “Node.js brings with it an open-source ethos and culture of contribution that aligns with organizational goals to drive agility and improve satisfaction.
“We all found that there wasn’t an ongoing forum for discussion and sharing solutions for large-scale JavaScript deployments. While we are all coming together through Node.js, as we looked at the problem space as being much broader than that. So defining the community as JavaScript at scale rather than just Node.js and server-side JavaScript made the most sense. Node.js is a key part of the equation. JavaScript is the answer.”