WalmartLabs LogoWalmartLabs is doing some very cool things with Node.js. When the heck did all this happen?

Did you know that Walmart supports nearly 30 open-source modules, most of which are used in production, or that they created their own “private npm” to prevent hacks? Nope, neither did I.

I must admit, Walmart is not a company that comes to mind when I think of leading-edge web development. But like many older large-scale organizations, they have realized that they need to better leverage technology, or lose market share to companies such as Amazon. Well, it sure seems like they are very focused.

I had never heard of WalmartLabs until very recently. I kept noticing that in my Node.js-specific web-surfing, their name started to pop-up. So I took a look, and what I found was impressive.

It seems to me that Walmart has been hiring top engineering talent, and putting them to good use. They are doing some pretty cool stuff with Node and making serious contributions to the open-source community. Below are two videos I have recently viewed that are very much worth checking out. If you are interested in Node.js in the enterprise, these folks have a lot to share.

Cheerios and Fruit Loops: Frontend Node At Walmart by Kevin Decker

Walmart Senior Mobile Web Architect Kevin Decker talks about how Walmart threw out their legacy Java stack, and the many challenges of SPAs. In particular, he provides an in-depth discussion on pre-caching with Phantom.js, Thorax, the Cheerios Library, Fruit Loops (“a sugary cheerios) and Contextify.

Node.js at Walmart

Walmart Sr. Architect Eran Hammer talks about the server stack that they built on smartOs, hapi – their open-source Node framework, and custom “server partials”. He also discusses their use of Node as an orchestration layer, and some of the challenges of migrating from their legacy Java back-end.

http://nodejs.org/video/

Interesting Links related to WallmarLabs

http://www.walmartlabs.com/

https://github.com/walmartlabs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/@WalmartLabs

http://www.walmartlabs.com/the-blog/

http://techcrunch.com/tag/walmartlabs/