d3.worker

WebWorkers are silly powerful, but also kinda clunky.

d3.worker aims to make the whole experience much nicer, by hiding some of the implementation details.

API exploration

var worker = d3.worker()
 .message("add", function(a, b){
   // this will get `toString`ed.. so no cheating!
   // `this` is the wrapped webworker... you can get at it with this.worker
   // the handlers are installed on the `message` object
   return this.message.sum(a + b);
 })
    .on("sum", function(sum){
      // `this` is still the worker... but outside
      return console.log("RESULT", sum);
    });

// this still feels weird...
worker();

// possible APIs
worker.message.add(1, 1);
worker.add(1, 1);

TODO

• don’t hang it off d3?
• handle loading libraries: d3.worker().dependencies("./d3.js")
• handle setup: d3.worker().setup(function(){})
  • does this create an initial event (i.e. ready?)