Ambassador program - message and topics for additional content

[mhdawson]

Brainstorm and move forward filling in:

https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs-ambassadors#current-ambassadors

https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs-ambassadors#topics-where-additional-content-would-benefit-the-community

as guidance for the ambassadors as we are starting to onboard them,

[lirantal]

It would be great to figure out top themes for focus areas. Some examples:

• Node.js cloud dev tooling enablement (cloud vendors, and other infra services and how support/build enablement content for)
• Node.js role in the world of AI and LLM? I realize folks would read this with a grain of salt around hype but if a considerable effort of current/future developer investment is going to be about working with LLMs, AI agentic framework, etc - how does Node.js make sure it is a good go-to for developers, rather than get left behind for Python, for example? And so, this might be about working more closely with the different vendors in the space and enabling them to further build-out their SDKs, APIs etc on-top of the runtime and so on.

Just a couple of ideas to get a brainstorming started.

[mhdawson]

Some ideas from the last WG meeting

• Promotion of recent notable changes
  • look at changelog and highlight areas of work
• Current initiatives
  • strategic initiatives
• Promoting working groups and getting involved in them
  • talk to WG members and do profile/why join
• How the project works (non-funded, volunteer, etc.)
• How to get involved in the project
• Using the new Typescript feature with Node.js
• Using ESM with Node.js

[mhdawson]

In terms of the idea about AI/LLM and JavaScript/Node.js I find that interesting as I've been working on content in that area.

[lirantal]

All those topics sound great to me, especially the new developments with Node.js which I imagine many would be interested in finding out and catching up with them.

[mcollina]

cc @mattpocock

[mattpocock]

Also, it sounds like there's an ongoing issue with out-of-date tutorials teaching old patterns. These then end up as questions to Node maintainers. Having a clear idea of what is up-to and out-of date would be great, especially on the more common ones.

As a relative newcomer to the Nodejs repo I'm not familiar yet with the most common requests. More info on that would be great.

[bmuenzenmeyer]

As someone working within industry and in the collaborator orbit, I think there's an interesting theme around "You might not need a dependency anymore."

Just last week I was telling a coworker that Node.js now natively supports:

• test runner, deprecating potentially ecosystems like jest
• watch mode, deprecating nodemon / watchman / etc
• env file, deprecating dotenv
• typescript, deprecating ... typescript?

This could likely culminate into a fun little series of articles whittling away old patterns and showcasing new.

just my two cents

edit: I'm not an ambassador, but I did author https://brianmuenzenmeyer.com/posts/2024-do-i-need-this-node-dependency/ to help articulate my point above

[mhdawson]

@bmuenzenmeyer your suggestion sounds interesting as it promotes new features/functions in Node.js. Would you be interested in PR'ing into https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/main/doc/contributing/advocacy-ambassador-program.md#current-messages-for-promotion as one of the messages?

[mhdawson]

@marco-ippolito will cover this topic at the collaborator summit, so we'll leave open until there and either add next steps based on discussion there or close this as done.

[mhdawson]

closing as complete.