Worker Threads enable parallel JavaScript execution. Here's how to use them for CPU-intensive work.
Basic Worker
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Promise Wrapper
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Worker Pool
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Inline Worker
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Shared Memory
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Atomics for Synchronization
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Message Channels
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Practical Example: Image Processing
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Express Integration
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Best Practices
When to Use:
✓ CPU-intensive computations
✓ Image/video processing
✓ Cryptographic operations
✓ Complex parsing/serialization
When NOT to Use:
✗ I/O bound operations
✗ Simple tasks (overhead > benefit)
✗ Operations needing main thread access
✗ Tasks requiring DOM access
Patterns:
✓ Use worker pools for reuse
✓ Transfer large data with transferList
✓ Use SharedArrayBuffer for shared state
✓ Implement proper error handling
Conclusion
Worker Threads enable true parallelism for CPU-intensive tasks. Use worker pools for efficiency, SharedArrayBuffer for shared state, and Atomics for synchronization. Reserve workers for computationally heavy operations where the parallelism benefit outweighs the overhead.