Node on the Desktop

[emorikawa]

Node on the Desktop

The Story

Node is going everywhere. First the server, then robots, and soon at the heart of desktop apps you use all day long. This talk is about using Node in Electron to create a new breed of desktop application — one that feels truly native on all platforms (even Windows), is highly performant, and utilizes the skills of Node developers and the tooling ecosystem built around them.

We’ve spent the past 1½ years building an open source, extensible desktop email client called N1. At first N1, like many other apps, was just a glorified browser tab. Over time, we discovered how to leverage Node & Electron’s APIs to parallelize with native process controls, compile native extensions, back everything with a SQLite database, and wire data through a functional reactive pipeline (via RxJs) straight into React components. I’m excited to show how you can use these lessons to build powerful, native-feeling desktop apps, and how this is unlocking an entirely new domain for Node developers.

About Me:

I am a core developer on the N1 project and an engineer at Nylas. I frequent, speaking events and love to talk about cool ways to use Node and javascript. I went to a startup college called Olin College of Engineering, and now split my time between San Francisco and New York.

As a final note, I genuinely look forward to a time when most of the software people use all day long is powered by this community. Every time I talk about this I hear about attendees immediately building or porting something new. I’d love a chance to get this audience as excited.