[whatwg] localStorage + worker processes

[Michael Nordman]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas at sicking.cc> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 1:23 PM, Jeremy Orlow <jorlow at google.com> wrote:
>> What is the need for localStorage access within workers?  Technically if
>> someone really needed to access it, they could always have a function in the
>> web page for accessing it and then use postMessage.  In other words, they
>> could build their own ad-hoc async API pretty easily.  Another alternative
>> is to just build an async API into the spec (and remove synchronous access
>> to localStorage).
>> Thoughts?
>
> I do think it would be great if workers had access to some type of
> structured storage. However I agree that the fact that both the main
> thread and workers have synchronous access to the same storage is not
> acceptable since that means that we're violating the
> shared-nothing-message-passing design that makes workers not have to
> deal with locks and other traditional multithread hazards.
>
> / Jonas

When discussing this standard we have to recognize that not all
browsers actually have a "main thread". Time will tell if more or less
browsers of the future will have multi-threaded architectures, but the
trend has been for more I think.

Any aspects of the spec that asserts or assumes a "main thread" is questionable.