This project demonstrates performing a CPU-intensive operation—generating prime numbers—in Node.js using four different approaches. These methods are featured in the Multi-Threading section of the Understanding Node.js: Core Concepts course.
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Single Thread in C++
We start by performing the operation using a single thread in C++. -
Multi-Threaded in C++
Next, we execute it using multiple threads in C++. -
Single Thread in JavaScript
Then, we run it in JavaScript with a single thread. -
Multi-Threaded in JavaScript
Finally, we execute it in JavaScript using multiple threads.
Here’s a sample test with a count of 400 and startingNumber of 100,000,000,000,000:
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Starting Test 1...
Time Taken - C++ 1 Thread: 1128.6435419999998ms
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Starting Test 2...
Time Taken - C++ 8 Threads: 153.3856249999999ms
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Starting Test 3...
Time Taken - JS 1 Thread: 58657.762666ms
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Starting Test 4...
Time Taken - JS 8 Threads: 8303.325124999996ms
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Conclusion:
We made our app not 2 times, not 10 times, but 300 times faster! The operation went from taking 60 seconds to complete, down to only 0.2 seconds. This shows the importance of the responsibility of a software engineer, that bad design choices could end up costing a business a lot of money, and waste a lot of customers' time.
Here are 3 more related repositories that might interest you:
- This project without GMP
- This addon used in an HTTP web server to generate the numbers
- The C++ part as a standalone project without Node.js
- Build GMP:
./gmp.sh - Install dependencies:
npm install - Configure node-gyp:
npm run config - Compile and run:
npm start
Ensure your machine is set up for C++ development. While the gmp.sh script handles GMP, you also need tools like CMake and Make installed. On Linux, you can install these tools with:
sudo apt install m4 cmake autoconf automake libtool build-essential
On Linux, the ./gmp.sh script might not properly set up the library with node-gyp. If that happens, install GMP manually:
sudo apt install libgmp-dev
Alternatively, you can check out the node-cpu-intensive-no-gmp repository, which is the same project but without the GMP library. However, note that you won’t be able to use arbitrarily large numbers (larger than unsigned long long) for C++ tests.