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Is Node.js Single-Threaded?
Introduction: The Restaurant Dilemma
Imagine a bustling restaurant where just one waiter is handling all the orders. Despite the chaos, everything runs smoothly. Diners receive their meals on time, the kitchen stays efficient, and no one feels neglected. The trick lies in how this single waiter prioritizes tasks, deftly managing orders and ensuring every customer is satisfied. If this sounds like a miracle, welcome to the world of Node.js, where a single-threaded event loop works wonders, making it seem like magic. But this raises a fundamental question: Is Node.js truly single-threaded, or is there more happening behind the scenes? This article dives deep into Node.js’s architecture to address the age-old debate, providing developers with a comprehensive understanding of its single-threaded nature and why it often appears multi-threaded.
The Foundation: Understanding Single-Threaded Architecture
At the core of Node.js is its single-threaded, non-blocking, event-driven architecture. The term “single-threaded” refers to the fact that Node.js executes JavaScript code on a single thread using an event loop. This design is rooted in the language itself, as JavaScript was initially developed to be…
