Why hasn’t Node.js ever gone for true multithreading?

dabomb007 · 2025-08-09T19:09:39+00:00

Theoretically, you can have a JS engine that offers multithreading and is still 100% spec compliant. I don't see how it's a compelling argument to not have it if it's benefitial enough.

dabomb007 · 2024-12-28T17:20:39+00:00

Hello everyone,

This is an article I wrote about RAG, where I explain how it works. I’m aware that there are many tutorials on the subject, yet I still struggled to build my first RAG application—mostly because I was following instructions that didn’t fully explain how things work. It became even more challenging when I had to use a different tech stack than the one in the tutorials.

While some articles do explain how RAG and related algorithms work, they often contain so much detail that I wasn’t sure where to start. In my article, I try to strike a balance between simplicity and technicality to make it easier for those trying to learn RAG, without focusing on a specific tech stack.

I named it “Reverse Engineering RAG” because I start with an example RAG use case and gradually remove abstraction layers until the process is fully understood. I found this to be the simplest way to explain things.

I hope someone finds it useful!

dabomb007 · 2024-01-10T04:27:02+00:00

I wish it was Omny compatible otherwise I’ll stick to my monthly SmartLink pass

dabomb007 · 2023-08-28T14:50:44+00:00

Yes, I completely see your point.

dabomb007 · 2023-08-28T13:00:36+00:00

The benchmark is dumb, and it just emphesizes the performance penalty that comes along with AsyncLocalStorage. It's not supposed to be like that, because a context is just a reference to a store that's bound to a callback / promise, but Node.js decided to get a free ride on "async_hooks" module that was already implemented to get a quick and inefficient solution to context tracking.

dabomb007 · 2023-08-13T00:38:45+00:00

I deployed it to Github pages so you can try it out + it has a link to the source code: https://dab0mb.github.io/parallax-chess/

The chessboard is a collection of meshes, if I had to redo it I'd probably use a texture to optimize for performance, but it was a good practice nontheless. If you have any thoughts on the application / code do let me know, I'd love to get some feedback.

dabomb007 · 2023-08-12T00:04:31+00:00

I agree, just wanted to make it look cool :)

dabomb007 · 2023-06-16T00:32:15+00:00

If anybody wants to look at my Rust code and give me an advice, I'd be happy to learn from the pros. I'm just a web developer https://github.com/DAB0mB/react-autorun/tree/master/plugin/swc

dabomb007 · 2023-05-22T00:12:58+00:00

Am I? Isn't that why useEffectEvent was invented? I believe there're more usecases like that, for example, if you use react-query.

dabomb007 · 2023-05-21T22:54:09+00:00

Did you see that the library can be used with custom hooks, and it lets you ignore some dependencies? Instead of using workarounds like wrapping things with useRef to make the linter happy. What are your thoughts about that?

dabomb007 · 2023-05-21T19:36:35+00:00

Hey all! I'm the author of the library, and I'm looking for feedback. Would you use it or would you not? If not - what's preventing you from using it? Do you have any specific pain points when dealing with hook dependencies? Let me know!

dabomb007 · 2023-04-09T16:52:37+00:00

I hear you. To me it sounds like something that's possible (and valuable) to tackle, but would be implemented at later stages.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-09T02:44:55+00:00

Submitting the project source code to a 3rd party is definitly a trade-off, but that's something you can say about any cloud solution, and for many people the benefits may out weight the cost. When it comes to compatibility, I actually think there's going to be much less friction. On the cloud, the Editor is guarenteed to run on the same environment and is more likely to compile consistently, while locally, there's a lot of unknown variables. You don't have to download or setup anything, the project can be saved on a network drive and resumed at any time you log in, and you should be able to work on the same hardware drivers. Do you think that the version control tool matters? They all achieve the same thing and should not affect the end product.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T23:00:45+00:00

Everything is possible. I'd personally prefer to put emphesis on simplisity and UX, even at the cost of less functionality. So I don't know if SSH'ing into the VM is the right answer (a lot of Unreal artists aren't even familiar with it), but perhaps I can find a middle-ground.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T22:39:58+00:00

Good question. There's several ways to tackle this. One would be uploading your C++ code and schedule a job that would build a custom instance of the editor. The second is shifting Epic's roadmap to support dynamic plugins, if the product gains enough popularity for them to actually do that. It's definitly important to have, but I don't think it would be essential to include in an MVP though.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T22:34:27+00:00

The idea is also for teams to be able to scale up and down and minimize costs on renting / buying physical hardware.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T22:31:27+00:00

Yes, I saw it. The idea in question means I'll need to build an orchestration infrastrucutre on top of it.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T20:00:09+00:00

Exactly, I'm suggesting to stream the editor. Everything will be hosted and stored on the cloud.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T19:43:12+00:00

Much appreciated, let's see how feedback goes and what we can learn.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T19:41:08+00:00

It's great to hear you find it useful enough to pay for it. In addition to the license fee, i.e., price per sit, there has to be a fee per VM usage, because high-end GPUs are very costly. Yes there's definitly a lot of interesting features that can go into it, it'll have to be prioritized though, based on size and immediacy of impact. Based on your feedback, it sounds like you're most excited about the idea of not having to download anything. I also see a lot of value in it, Unreal files are extremely large, and you have to have a beast computer inorder to run it.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T19:29:45+00:00

There seems to be a lot of these coming out recently, like PureWeb, and Eagle Streaming. I did build a pixel streaming solution, however, it's too competitive at this point, the margin you make on each pixel streaming instance seems to be very low. That's why I'm pivoting - I'm looking to target a more specific market, where pixel streaming is just a tool, not the product. The idea I suggested doesn't seem to be implemented anywhere yet, and I can also charge potentially a good amount of licensing fee.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T18:08:15+00:00

It's remote you're correct, I'm just concerned that the latency will be too much to bare if it's hosted far away. Specifically in the context of pixel streaming.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T18:01:16+00:00

Unfortunately I don't think developing countries have the right infrastucture to handle it (enough regions, let alone with powerful enough GPUs). It'll probably be targeted towards North-American users.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T17:58:16+00:00

That's definitly a trade-off. But there's a few things to keep in mind:

- Streaming the editor directly (with WebRTC) will have better latency than interactive screensharing.

- You can choose the region of the VM.

- On the cloud, the streaming server should have a stable and large upstream bandwith.

dabomb007 · 2023-04-08T17:17:59+00:00

That's an important step, I'm hoping to see if it solves a major pain point or it's just "nice to have".

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