node-hirelings
==============

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node-hirelings is a lightweight work queue using child processes. 

Use this to perform work that might:

* block the event loop;
* fail spectacularly;
* be aborted impolitely;
* be retried a few times;
* report progress;
* be measured with statsd or suchlike.

This is heavily inspired by [lloyd/compute-cluster](https://github.com/lloyd/node-compute-cluster).
In fact, node-hirelings began life as a great big pull request before I
realized that was a dumb idea and just started my own project.

Installation
------------

````
$ npm install node-hirelings
````

Usage
-----

**TODO:** Need something sensible here. Tests are an example, for now.

API
---

**TODO:** Need something sensible here. Maybe pointer to
[docco](http://jashkenas.github.com/docco/) output from `lib/hirelings.js`?

Frequently Anticipated Questions
--------------------------------

* Why "hirelings"?
    * It amuses me to pick odd names for projects. Hirelings are the
      semi-disposable, semi-reliable hired help that players can pick up in
      role-playing games.

TODO
----

* Further limit respawning workers that die early. Maybe kill the pool entirely
  with an error if too many workers are dying in a span of time.

* Promises-based API?

License
-------

This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v.
2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this file, You can obtain
one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.