Asynchronous Javascript

Evozon TechTalk #3
 Synchronous code

• Statements executed one after another

• Problem! Execution might be blocked..

 Asynchronous code

• Statements schedules something to happen in the future

• Asynchronous != Concurrent/Multi-threaded
 How to achieve asynchronicity?

• Treat functions as first class functions/objects:

• Store in variable
• Pass to/Return from another function
 Callbacks

• Function passed to another function as a parameter

• E.g. setTimeout, on (jQuery)

• Problem!
• Callback hell
• No ‘throw’ keyword
• Can’t return values
 Promises

• Object producing a single value some time in the future

• Use callbacks
• Can be chained
 Generators – “Run..Stop..Run”

• Follows Iterator interface

• Pause a function execution -> do other things -> return to function
• yield – pass control to external system
 Async/Await

• Still uses promises

• Uses try/catch to handle both sync/async errors