Run a function as a separate node.js process?

Question

Is it possible to run a function as a completely separate node.js process? For example:

var parallel = require("parallel");
parallel(function(){
    var app = require("express")();
    app.on("/",function(req,res){ res.send("hi"); });
    app.listen(80);
},function callback(err,stdout){
    console.log("process terminated!")
});

Is something like that possible?

Answer 1

First off, try to use the idiomatic way of load-balancing. For node, this is asynchronous design. See these other answers for more info:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/8685968/538551
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/11278689/538551

There are options though:

• threading: threads_a_go_go (source on github).
• fibers: node-fibers
  • note, this only does concurrency, not parallism; it's more for code structure than parallel processing (more here)
• apache thrift nodejs plugin: not directly what you're asking for, but this is the route I'd go. I'd implement the hard stuff in something low-level (like C)