

Why aren't Web Workers used more? - hugofirth
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19655394/why-arent-web-workers-used-more?noredirect=1#comment29188480_19655394

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mistercow
I think #2 is the kicker. Libraries are a place where web workers make a lot
of sense, because the payoff for the extra work is multiplied by everyone who
uses it. And as time goes on and JS libraries do more and more heavy lifting,
it makes sense that they would benefit from multi-threading.

But that same thing works against a library developer when it comes to browser
compatibility. It means you have to write a fallback, and that's particularly
annoying when it comes to web workers.

The other problem as I see it is that the model of not sharing memory makes it
a lot trickier to squeeze performance out. A lot of situations that would
benefit from multi-threading are situations where you're processing a big
chunk of data. If you have to copy those big chunks of data in and out of your
worker, you sacrifice a lot of the performance you're working so hard to
achieve.

Transferable objects will help a lot with that, but that's very new, and it
will be even longer before you can just take it as a given.

