code.talks 2018 Enhancing Data Processing in Browsers Using Streams

Talk by Konstantin Möllers

Until now, data processing in the browser has been limited to using arrays without the possibility of using native I/O streams. This is memory-intensive and hurts performance.

Therefore, the WHATWG consortium has been working on a new specification to make data processing much easier and more controllable: With the Streams API, data streams can now be created in the browser to manipulate data asynchronously and bit by bit, so that the performance of data processing in the browser can be improved by up to several orders of magnitude.

This talk gives an overview of the specification and its new interfaces and shows as example how to build a Service Worker using the Streams API to polyfill the Targa Image Format ersetzent for other browsers.