[html5] Web Workers question

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2010, Dylan Barrell wrote:
> 
> It seems like the spec 
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/ is somewhat 
> confused about whether any documents are available in the 
> GlobalWorkerScope.
> 
> On the one hand, it says that if the script creating the Worker's global 
> object is a Window, then the document should be added to the "worker's 
> Documents", but then goes on to say that the DOM API is not available to 
> the Worker in this version of the spec.
> 
> How does adding the document to the WorkerGlobalScope help if the DOM 
> API is not available?

It's an internal accounting measure to help define the lifetime of the 
Worker threads. It's not exposed to the Web author.


> Doesn't this really reduce the usefulness of the Worker object by 
> restricting it to tasks that have nothing to do with the DOM - e.g. 
> analyzing it as it changes?

Somewhat, but unfortunately exposing DOM APIs to workers requires 
substantial work from browser vendors, so it might take some time.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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