Downside of node.js?

Question

Disclaimer, my knowledge of node.js a few articles mostly summarized by this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js

That said, so my understanding is that it's supposed to be very quick because it avoids the overhead of threading. It puts everything into a single loop instead of doing the overhead of switching between processes.

I assume there is a reason why there is a sophisticated method of switching contexts completely in between threads. My question is, what is the benefit of having threads over the node.js approach?

This is very borderline off topic. I recommend re-wording a bit (namely the `What is the benefit...`) until someone a little more stark comes along and flags you :) — Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED, May 26 '15 at 01:54
Huh? Whats the difference between "What is the benefit..." to "What is the downside..."? — Carlos Bribiescas, May 26 '15 at 01:57
Nothing; they could both easily be misconstrued as off-topic (opinion based). — Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED, May 26 '15 at 01:58
I don't know how to rephrase... I think i'm asking a technically valid question. Feel free to make edits. — Carlos Bribiescas, May 26 '15 at 02:00

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 26 '15 at 01:17

Node.js is extremely fast with IO-intensive tasks, since its event model supports IO delays perfectly. On the other hand, it is completely incapable of doing CPU-intensive tasks without stopping everything. Thus, if you need some heavy calculation, you will want to fork off a worker to do it for you.

Threaded model switches contexts automatically, whatever the thread is doing, and thus can handle CPU-intensive jobs without impacting other threads negatively too much. (Or rather, they will still work, only slower if CPU capacity is reached.)

Downside of node.js?

1 Answers1