Using NodeJS 7.x

---

Hi,
I plan to develop some custom modules around NodeJS working together with pimatic 0.9.38 via REST-API. Therefore I want to use a current Node release on the raspi.
The only think I found was “pimatic should be fine with newer versions of NodeJS” (running 4.6.2 at the moment). And “maybe some plugins won’t work” - how can I see what should and what shouldn’t work here?

Thanks
Marcel

@dl1ekm What do you mean by custom modules?

If it is about pimatic plugins you need to stick to node 4.6. If your custom modules are basically independent applications you do whatever you want. You can even use a different programming language like Java or C# as some users did already.

“pimatic should be fine with newer versions of NodeJS” (running 4.6.2 at the moment)

No. Don’t expect this to work. This may be ok for plain vanilla code, but pimatic uses several native code libraies and the the native code inetgration is like to break between major version (as it did in the past).

If you want to run your Node.js applications on the same host where pimatic is installed my advice is as follows:

• don’t use node.js 7 as this is the development version with the latest features. Use the LTS version instead
• write unit tests and test your code with different node versions to ensure backward compatibility. You can use build automation tools like Travis to make this a piece of cake. Note, having multiple versions of node.js on the same host is not good practice and has been a common source of pimatic issues for several users.
• if you want to use the new language features because “programming is an art and you love the beauty of ES6” you can use babel to make it compatible with legacy node.js like node 4.6 required for pimatic

Hi @mwittig!

Are you sure about 4.6? Can I use 4.8 (latest LTS?)?
Some of the submodules of the pimatic-hap plugin require node 4.3, I only have 4.2.6 installed.

Sorry for hijacking

@georg90 said in Using NodeJS 7.x:

Are you sure about 4.6? Can I use 4.8 (latest LTS?)?

4.8 is fine, so I should have said 4.x.

4.x is still covered by LTS, however, active LTS will end on 1st of April. Basic Maintainance will contine until 1st of April 2018. When you look at the Node.js site the current LTS version advertised is 6.10. See also https://github.com/nodejs/LTS#lts-schedule

Some of the submodules of the pimatic-hap plugin require node 4.3, I only have 4.2.6 installed.

I wasn’t aware of this as I don’t use pimatic-hap in my setup. Are you sure? I can find it in the docs. The engine spec for HAP-NodeJS states "node": ">=4.3.2", btw. So, you should get warning message your Node.js is too old.

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I was referring to the submodule, which needs >4.3.
I am installing 4.8 right now and will try if this fixes my problems with pimatic-hap.

Thanks for the quick help!