NodeJ is a node.js compatible framework, running on the JVM and powered by the DynJS Javascript runtime. "Why do that?", you may ask. Well, imagine running your node app on the JVM where you immediately have access to all that the Java world has to provide - directly from Javascript. With this approach, extending node doesn't require C++ addons. You've got the entire Java ecosystem at your disposal instead. And since DynJS is cross-language compatible, why not throw in a little JRuby or Clojure with your app if you want. It's all available on the JVM. Neat, right? We thought so, and thus we decided to try and make it happen.

Be prepared to get your hands dirty. NodeJ is still a work in progress and it's evolving daily. But for now, if you want to run it, you need to be willing to build it from source. And to do that, you'll need to build vert.x from source. But for now, because you asked....

$ git clone https://github.com/vert-x/vert.x.git
$ cd vert.x
$ ./gradlew collectDeps
$ ./gradelew distTar

This will put the complete vert.x installation in build/vert.x-2.0.0-SNAPSHOT. Just update your $PATH to include /path/to/repo/vert.x/build/vert.x-2.0.0-SNAPSHOT/bin.

Then, you'll need to build nodej.

$ git clone https://github.com/projectodd/nodej.git
$ cd nodej
$ mvn install

By default, vert.x runs Javascript with Rhino. Change this to use lang-dynjs and nodej by creating a langs.properties file at the root of your project that looks like this.

nodejs=org.projectodd~nodej~0.1.1-SNAPSHOT:org.projectodd.nodej.NodeJSVerticleFactory
.js=nodejs

Now you should be able to run nodej through vert.x like so.

$ vertx run someFile.js

NodeJ is a new project - a baby, really. So, there's a lot yet to be done. In addition, some aspects of node.js don't really translate from C++ very well. For example, we will never support C/C++ addons. This project, however, is not yet a pure cleanroom implementation. Some of the javascript source code from node.js - specifically those bits of source that do not depend on any of the C++ backend - work just fine out of the box. In other cases, only minor modifications have been made to the node.js source files to take advantage of Java instead of C++ backend functionality. For now, here's the Node.js API and it's current NodeJ status. Where we've used any of the node.js source files directly, it's been noted below.

API implementation is prioritized by the current Node.js Stability Index. Features with a stability index of 2 or below are noted below. Since those APIs that are unstable are likely a moving target, we'll wait for a while to implement those until they've settled down. And in the meantime, we may just provide our own (e.g. Clustering).

• Assert - complete[1]
• Buffer - incomplete but functional
• C/C++ Addons - unsupported
• Child Processes
• Cluster - Stability 1
• Crypto - Stability 2
• Debugger
• DNS
• Domain - Stability 1
• Events - complete[1]
• File System
• Globals - complete
• HTTP - Complete except for http.Agent
• HTTPS
• Modules - complete
• Net - complete
• OS - complete[3]
• Path - complete[1]
• Process - incomplete but functional
• Punycode - complete[1] - Stability 2
• Query Strings - complete
• Readline - Stability 2
• REPL
• STDIO - complete
• Stream complete[1] - Stability 2
• String Decoder
• Timers - complete
• TLS/SSL
• TTY - Stability 2
• UDP/Datagram
• URL - complete[3]
• Utilities - complete[2]
• VM - Stability 2
• ZLIB

[1] Direct copy of Node.js source code

[2] Modified copy of Node.js source code

[3] Node.js javascript utilizing Java instead of C++ backend