express 5.0.0

[gireeshpunathil]

the original issue (PR expressjs/express#2237) that tracks this is locked up for probable unmanageable number of discussions and some of which off-topic? I can't find an active issue that tracks this, so opening one.

I request to release express 5.

• how was the user feedback on 5.0.0-alpha.7? if it is reasonably positive, does it make sense to cut that into 5?
• are there pending items in Release 5.0 express#2237 (comment) that are real blockers? can they be pushed to in 5.1?
• can we have a TC meeting to discuss this - challenges, gaps, actionables and owners?

I am not an express commiter, but a staunch fan. I can commit the necessary bandwidth required for upskilling myself and contribute to realize this!

[dougwilson]

how was the user feedback on 5.0.0-alpha.7? if it is reasonably positive, does it make sense to cut that into 5?

There has generally not been any so far...

are there pending items in expressjs/express#2237 (comment) that are real blockers? can they be pushed to in 5.1?

Those are simply the steps left to do.

can we have a TC meeting to discuss this - challenges, gaps, actionables and owners?

Sur!. Please open an issue in the discussions repo for meeting requests 👍

[dougwilson]

I think ultimately the last piece at this point for express 5 is to include the update for the new path-to-regexp which will also need a corresponding section created in http://expressjs.com/en/guide/migrating-5.html

I think the following are the tasks currently for the next 5 release (beta from current alpha):

1. Get the express dep upgrades all rolled out into a 4.x patch release.
2. Roll the new patch into the 5.0 branch
3. Publish router beta with new route syntax and put in 5.0 branch
4. Publish 5.0 beta
5. Update migration guide on expressjs
6. Update announcement to it being beta

From there, with the new route syntax, it would be useful if some real world apps were migrated to 5 before it was published as 5.0 due to the routing syntax changes. Not only to be prepared to answer incoming question and/or refine our guide, but also find issues.

[dougwilson]

(Sorry i didn't mean to close the issue after my first response)

[gireeshpunathil]

@dougwilson - here is a request for TC sitting: #99 . I am good with any day, any time.

[dougwilson]

So for some more things to think about here for planning, is that once 5.0 is released how long do we want to support 4.x? In the past it has been 1 year, but we should decide if that makes sense to us. With the changes, I think it is going to be some level of effort to upgrade a large app from 4 to 5, so it seems the longer we can make it, the nicer experience it would be.

Also we may want to comb over the issues in our deps (the ones in our orgs) as I forgot that some have major of their own tied into express 5. The router module was mentioned above already, but body-parser should be another and I think with the "mime" module suddenly archiving it's repo, serve-static may need to be another one as well (to include the switch from mime to mime-types).

This is just a though dump comment, so it's not well formed. More like notes for myself for the tc meeting but everyone can see before hand lol

[gireeshpunathil]

@dougwilson -

new path-to-regexp which will also need a corresponding section created in http://expressjs.com/en/guide/migrating-5.html

I would like to drive this to closure, any guidance on where to start or whom to contact?

4. Publish 5.0 beta

Why do we want a beta release? We ran into extra-ordinarily long iterations of alphas, and as there wasn't any concerns from its users, why can't we go straight upto 5.0.0 GA? anyways, we shall discuss this in the TC!

I am stating my opinion here that, releasing express 5.0.0 (as GA, not as beta) is the best thing to do, for the ecosystem.

migration guide:

Who is / are the SMEs here? I would like to request that all the maintainers and triagers be educated on this topic - a couple of dedicated sessions if need be would be great. If you can share the info on the SME part, I can co-ordinate with them on this space.

how long do we want to support 4.x?

My take is that we defer it (taking a decision) to after the release of 5 and some insights from the field are gathered? Until then the standard 1 year applies, with a caveat of future amendments?

Also we may want to comb over the issues in our deps

May be candidates for 6, 7, 8... ?

[dougwilson]

I would like to drive this to closure, any guidance on where to start or whom to contact?

The path-to-regexp update has mainly been driven by @wesleytodd

Why do we want a beta release? We ran into extra-ordinarily long iterations of alphas, and as there wasn't any concerns from its users, why can't we go straight upto 5.0.0 GA?

We can absolutely do that, but it means that we drop adding anything new at this point and release alpha.7 as the GA. That is your suggestion, correct?

Who is / are the SMEs here? I would like to request that all the maintainers and triagers be educated on this topic - a couple of dedicated sessions if need be would be great. If you can share the info on the SME part, I can co-ordinate with them on this space.

That is such a large question, I'm not even sure how to really answer it :) I mean, I would probably say in a general sense myself and @wesleytodd /shrug

May be candidates for 6, 7, 8... ?

IMO one thing I really like about Express, and pretty much all my coworkers, is the lack of constant breaking changes and majors. I would push back extremely strongly regarding this, unless you're talking about the far future. IMO I think we should not be releasing majors faster than Node.js itself, if even that. That means that if we release 5.0 today, then we're deferring everything not included into it until at least Feb 2021... If we want to do that, I think we should get a good idea on what exactly we are talking about here and the specifics around such a sudden change in direction that is so drastic.

[gireeshpunathil]

@dougwilson -

We can absolutely do that, but it means that we drop adding anything new at this point and release alpha.7 as the GA. That is your suggestion, correct?

Yes.

That means that if we release 5.0 today, then we're deferring everything not included into it until at least Feb 2021

Generally agree if there are immediate takers of the delta features - but as you rightly said, we need to look at those items to get a better feel. But here is a consumer's perspective: the more features get added to a major, the tougher it becomes to test, assess the impact, and migrate. I am not saying a 6 months cadence is good for this project, but on the other hand, too long gaps between majors make it hard to migrate too?

I would push back extremely strongly regarding this

I guess this is where the real difference in opinion is, if at all - all others being just general sync up and ratification. How do we gather consensus on this? - express release cadence

• deliberate in a separate issue
• discuss in a dedicated meeting
• gather user feedback

?

[gireeshpunathil]

I opened https://github.com/expressjs/express/issues/4197 for item 3 above