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Raunak Gurud@raunakgurud

September 11, 2023

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Will Bun replace Node ???

What is Bun?

Bun is a new runtime that provides an all-in-one toolkit for JavaScript and TypeScript apps. It ships as a single executable called Bun, making your app run really fast.

How Does Bun Do It?

Unlike other runtimes, such as Node or Deno, which use the heavy and slow Chromium V8 engine developed by Google, Bun uses a different engine called JavaScriptCore, developed by Apple. This engine is written in Zig, which makes Bun a fast runtime.

What does bun do

Bun takes care of developer experience and performance through its feature

Features that will be useful.

Developer experience

Bun is committed to providing an unparalleled developer experience. We pride ourselves on offering intuitive and easy-to-use APIs that help streamline the development process. In addition to our existing APIs.

Let's try building an API server in Bun.

    # install bun
    # https://bun.sh/docs/installation
    # check bun is working
    bun -h
    mkdir bun
    cd bun
    bun init

write on index.ts file

bun-server

no need to install nodemon ts-node and other development packages it just works

run

curl

Import require

The transition from CommonJS to ES modules has been slow and full of terrors. After ESM was introduced, Node.js took 5 years before supporting it without an --experimental-modules flag. Regardless, the ecosystem is still full of CommonJS.

Bun supports both module systems, all the time. No need to worry about file extensions, .js vs .cjs vs .mjs, or including "type": "module" in your package.json.

You can even use import and require(), in the same file. It just works.

    import lodash from "lodash";
    const _ = require("underscore");

Quick setup

Whenever I begin working on a new project, I need to install nodemon, set up tsconfig, jest, "webpack", and many other dependencies. But you don't have to worry about that anymore!

Just type the following:

    bun init

It works like magic

Bundlers

Testing libraries

Transpilers

nodemon — Bun has a built-in watch mode!

dotenv, cross-env — Bun reads .env files by default

It is fast

Bun is a fast framework, starting up to 4x faster than Node.js. This speed difference is even more pronounced when running a TypeScript file, which needs to be transpired before it can be run by Node.js.

fast-1

Bun is orders of magnitude faster than npm, yarn, and pnpm. It uses a global module cache to avoid redundant downloads from the npm registry and uses the fastest system calls available on each operating system.

fast-2

Problems

I am currently unable to come up with any problems.

Will bun will be replaced

In my opinion, it's not a matter of will but rather when to start using Bun. Even if it may not be as performant as they tested, I would use Bun for the developer experience itself. It can save a lot of time for setup and ensuring everything works properly.

References