Idea

Primes

• Calculating primes is one of the most computationally intensive task, and an important component in computer security.
• This repo aims at calculating prime numbers, in a certain range, using multithreading concepts in NodeJS.
• Basic sieve method is used to collect prime numbers. The range is divided between worker-threads here.
• And the number of worker threads spawned is equal to the number of cores, to maximise output. If more spawned need to switch between threads, which takes time, if more spawned, cores underutilized.

Worker Threads

• Javascript can handle I/O events easily, owing to EventLoop. Hence, Node can handle multiple HTTP requests pretty seamlessly.
• But, if Node needs to do heavy computation, it cannot rely on EventLoop, since it runs on single-thread, and all the cores aren't optimally utilized. Here is when, worker-thread comes in.
• From the Worker-Thread Docs-
  Workers (threads) are useful for performing CPU-intensive JavaScript operations. They will not help much with I/O-intensive work. Node.js’s built-in asynchronous I/O operations are more efficient than Workers can be.
• For tasks like these, even child_processes or cluster can be used. Although, they don't provide support for transferring or sharing memory as of now.

Links

• EventLoop
• Worker-Thread Docs

Data Structure

• For initialising a worker, passing data in workerData actually clones the data
• Whereas, for passing messages, using worker.postMessage(), data is passed either by cloning, transfering or sharing
• Cloning : Arrays are serialised then cloned, and desearialised. Since, the raw data segregation isn't know.
• Transfering : ArrayBuffer operate on this, since, they use TypedArrays such as Uint8Array as layer, owing to which, their raw segment sizes are known, and can be transfered easily.
• Sharing : SharedArrayBuffer is similar to ArrayBuffer, where you need to wrap it using TypedArrays, but they can be shared. To maintain concurrency, Atomics library is used alongwith it, to perform concurrent opertations

Links

• Array - MDN
• ArrayBuffer - MDN
• SharedArrayBuffer - MDN
• TypedArray - MDN
• A crash course in memory management - Mozilla Hacks

Other Tools used

• Inquirer.JS - To create command line interfaces, in a whim.
• Ora - Elegant terminal spinners for your command line interfaces.
• Benchmark.JS - A robust benchmarking library, with high-resolution timers.

Interface

Interactive CLI

Benchmarking and write to CSV

ToDo

• [ ] Add serialised Array and benchmark
• [x] Plot the benchmark data
• [ ] Benchmark message passing
• [ ] Implement communication between workers

Benchmarks

• To calculate prime numbers upto a Range.

CPU

CPU family: 6
Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8600K CPU @ 3.60GHz

OS

Ubuntu 18.04

Graph

Data

• Over large inputs, worker thread works better than main threads.
• Also, sharedArrayBuffer gives best performance over various data structures.
• When using sharedArrayBuffer beware, to use Atomics library to maintain data consistency.

Addendum

• Notes and errors encounterd, have been added to NOTES.md

Contributing

• Always open for enchancements and bux-fixes!

Contributors

• @nilshah98