chan.js

/*
Makes a channel that buffers up to n items
*/
function chan(n) {
  const data = []; // data not yet read
  const readersBacklog = []; // readers waiting for data
  const writersBacklog = []; // writers waiting for data
  let disposed = false;
  // TODO(Benjamin) - disposing
  return {
    async read() {
      if (data.length === n) {
        // data is full
        const nextWaitingWrite = writersBacklog.shift();
        nextWaitingWrite();
      }
      if (data.length > 0) {
        return data.shift();
      }
      return new Promise(resolve => readersBacklog.push(resolve));
    },
    async write(datum) {
      if (data.length === 0) {
        const resolve = readersBacklog.shift();
        resolve(datum);
        return;
      }
      if (data.length < n) {
        data.push(datum);
        return;
      }
      return new Promise(resolve => {
        writersBacklog.push(() => {
          data.push(datum);
          resolve();
        });
      });
    },
    async *[Symbol.asyncIterator]() {
      while(!disposed) yield await this.read();
    },
  };
}
/*
this impementation is very slow (for the arrays and queue and closure)
but it just demonstrates how
*/

{
  // Example with 1 concurrency, uncomment to see
  // const c = chan(1); // only one at once
  // let i = 0;
  // (async () => {
  //   setInterval(() => c.write('hello world!', i++), 200);
  //   for await(const data of c) {
  //     console.log('got data', data);
  //   }
  // })();
}
{
  // example with two readers 
  const c = chan(2);
  let i = 0;
  setInterval(() => c.write('hello world!', i++), 200);
  (async () => {
    for await(const data of c) {
      console.log('got data first channel', data);
    }
  })();
  (async () => {
    for await(const data of c) {
      console.log('got data second channel', data);
    }
  })();  
}

What are the ways to optimize for speed?

@wmakeev this was just to illustrate an example, you can use streams in Node for what channels do in Go