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Shifting JavaScript into High Gear with Web Workers

by Mike Van Sickle

This course dives into what web workers are and provides practical demonstrations showing how they can be used to add parallel processing capabilities to a web application.

What you'll learn

In recent years, JavaScript has risen to become one of the most important languages in modern software development. However, despite the powerful engines that run it, it is often limited by its single-threaded nature. In this course, Shifting JavaScript into High Gear with Web Workers, you will learn how to work around that constraint in web applications by using the WebWorker API to allow your application to take advantage of the full power that your customer's computers have to offer. First, you will get to see why web workers are the preferred solution for adding parallel execution paths to an application. Next, you'll get a step-by-step overview of the various aspects of working with web workers, such as defining messages and what APIs can be accessed from within a worker. Finally, you'll see how web workers can be added to a real-world application in a way that causes the smallest disruption possible to the application's structure, while gaining the advantages inherent with workers. After finishing this course, you will be ready to implement web workers into your multi-threaded applications with minimum hassle.

About the author

Michael Van Sickle is an application architect in Akron, Ohio. He started his career as a mechanical engineer, designing components for the automotive industry, before changing to software engineering. He is passionate about learning new programming languages and is comfortable working in Java, C#, JavaScript, PHP, and F#. Mike also loves learning about user experience design and is taking a lead role in his company's attempt to make applications that are elegant and simple. When he i... more

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