book

Multithreaded Javascript

by Thomas Hunter, Bryan English

September 2021

Intermediate to advanced

211 pages

5h 32m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Target AudienceGoalsConventions Used in This BookUsing Code ExamplesO’Reilly Online LearningHow to Contact UsAcknowledgments
What Are Threads?Concurrency Versus ParallelismSingle-Threaded JavaScriptHidden ThreadsThreads in C: Get Rich with HappycoinWith Only the Main ThreadWith Four Worker Threads
Dedicated WorkersDedicated Worker Hello WorldAdvanced Dedicated Worker UsageShared WorkersShared Worker Hello WorldAdvanced Shared Worker UsageService WorkersService Worker Hello WorldAdvanced Service Worker ConceptsMessage Passing AbstractionsThe RPC PatternThe Command Dispatcher PatternPutting It All Together
Before We Had ThreadsThe worker_threads ModuleworkerDataMessagePortHappycoin: RevisitedWith Only the Main ThreadWith Four Worker ThreadsWorker Pools with PiscinaA Pool Full of Happycoins
Intro to Shared MemoryShared Memory in the BrowserShared Memory in Node.jsSharedArrayBuffer and TypedArraysAtomic Methods for Data ManipulationAtomics.add()Atomics.and()Atomics.compareExchange()Atomics.exchange()Atomics.isLockFree()Atomics.load()Atomics.or()Atomics.store()Atomics.sub()Atomics.xor()Atomicity ConcernsData SerializationBooleansStringsObjects
Atomic Methods for CoordinationAtomics.wait()Atomics.notify()Atomics.waitAsync()Timing and NondeterminismExample of NondeterminismDetecting Thread PreparednessExample Application: Conway’s Game of LifeSingle-Threaded Game of LifeMultithreaded Game of LifeAtomics and Events
Thread PoolPool SizeDispatch StrategiesExample ImplementationMutex: A Basic LockStreaming Data with Ring BuffersActor ModelPattern NuancesRelating to JavaScriptExample Implementation
Your First WebAssemblyAtomic Operations in WebAssemblyCompiling C Programs to WebAssembly with EmscriptenOther WebAssembly CompilersAssemblyScriptHappycoin in AssemblyScript
When Not to UseLow Memory ConstraintsLow Core CountContainers Versus ThreadsWhen to UseSummary of Caveats

Overview

Traditionally, JavaScript has been a single-threaded language. Nearly all online forum posts, books, online documentation, and libraries refer to the language as single threaded. Thanks to recent advancements in the language--such as the Atomics and SharedArrayBuffers objects and Web Workers in the browser--JavaScript is now a multi-threaded language. These features will go down as being the biggest paradigm shift for the world's most popular programming language.

Multithreaded JavaScript explores the various features that JavaScript runtimes have at their disposal for implementing multithreaded programming, providing both practical real-world examples, as well as reference material.

Learn what multithreaded programming is and how you can benefit from it
Understand the differences between a web worker, a service worker, and a worker thread
Know when and when not to use threads in an application
Orchestrate communication between threads by leveraging the Atomics object
Build high-performance applications using the knowledge you gain from this book
Benchmark performance to learn if you'll benefit from multithreading