Eleven years ago, I wrote a Mandelbrot set generator in JavaScript as a way to test out the then somewhat new Web Workers API, allowing me to make use of multiple cores and not tie up the UI thread with the calculations. Recently I decided to see how much I could improve it with improvements to the web stack that have happened since then. The result was much faster than what I’d managed previously:

While at linux.conf.au earlier this year, I started hacking on a Mandelbrot Set fractal renderer implemented in JavaScript as a way to polish my JS skills. In particular, I wanted to get to know the HTML5 Canvas and Worker APIs. The results turned out pretty well. Click on the image below to try it out: Clicking anywhere on the fractal will zoom in. You'll need to reload the page to zoom out.