[FUTURE] Write a comparison benchmark using `worker_threads` module
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- Dominant language
- C++
- Stars
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- Forks
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Description
v10.5.0 has a new `worker_threads` module that allows pure JS functions to run on a separate thread. The node-cpp-skel demonstrates doing this type of thing using C++, but the `worker_threads` module allows for it in pure JS. (https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v10.5.0/)
It would be useful to try to write an 🍏 to 🍏 (or as close as we can get) comparison benchmark of doing the same work in C++ threads vs JS threads using `worker_threads`. We would try to answer questions like:
- 🍒 Is performance of passing data (#69, #67) similar in with `worker_threads` vs using libuv directly in C++?
- 🍊 When combined (overhead of thread queuing, passing data to the thread, doing compute, getting data back) which approach is faster?
We could get at 🍒 by writing a benchmark that passes the same, large data, and does no compute in the thread. Instead that thread could just sleep for N seconds.
We could get at 🍊 by passing the same data and doing the same (as close as possible) compute, perhaps a Fibonacci (or some kind of classical compute intensive workload).
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Depending on the results we will want to update https://github.com/mapbox/cpp/blob/master/node-cpp.md#why-create-a-node-addon which says:
> Why create a node addon?
> To port a C++ project to Node to expose a new interface for the tool (like Mapnik & Node Mapnik)
> Improve performance at scale where Node becomes the bottleneck (i.e. concurrency)
If JS is just as fast as C++, then we'll want to update that doc to mention `worker_threads` as a more ideal solution than writing a node addon to access the thread pool. If `JS/worker_threads` is slower than C++ then we'll probably want to add details to that doc about what types of workloads or performance situations we'd want to use C++ and which we'd want to consider `JS/worker_threads`
/cc @mapbox/core-tech
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reviewing the node-cpp-skel examples and the node-cpp.md section linked in the issue, along with the referenced worker_threads release information. Define comparable C++ and JavaScript worker benchmarks for data passing and compute, then use their results to determine whether node-cpp.md needs updated guidance.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- cpp, javascript, node.js
- Domain
- documentation, performance
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100