What is workerify?

Workerify is a small JavaScript tool that lets you turn a function into a web worker without creating a separate file. Normally, web workers, which are JavaScript code that runs in the background without blocking your main app, require you to save them as separate files and load them with special code. This tool simplifies that: you just write your background code as a regular function, and it handles the complexity behind the scenes. Here's how it works in plain terms. You pass a function to workerify, and it takes the code inside that function, wraps it up, and runs it as a background worker. Inside the function, you write code as if it's running in its own isolated space, which it is. You can't access variables or functions from outside the function (because background workers genuinely can't see your main app's data). Instead, you communicate by sending messages back and forth: your main code sends a message with postMessage(), the worker receives it with onmessage, does some work, and sends results back the same way. This is useful for tasks that take a long time to run, like processing large files, doing heavy calculations, or fetching data. Without a background worker, that work would freeze your entire app while it's happening. A founder or engineer might use workerify to keep their app responsive, say, processing a CSV upload without the UI becoming unresponsive, or offloading image processing to the background so users can keep clicking buttons. The main appeal is convenience: instead of managing separate worker files and build steps, you write the worker code inline in your JavaScript. It's a lighter-weight approach that trades off some separation of concerns for developer simplicity, making it a good fit for smaller projects or prototypes where you don't need the full complexity of a dedicated worker file.