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> I don't agree with the author that we shouldn't use async/await because it _looks like_ synchronous code. Not having code that is actively deceptive sounds l

> I don't agree with the author that we shouldn't use async/await because it _looks like_ synchronous code. Not having code that is actively deceptive sounds like a good idea to me, so agree with the author. > We _should_ use it to keep syntax simple and clean wherever possible! Having clean and simple syntax for async operations is a laudable goal. Having code that is actively deceptive about its semantics seems less than ideal for accomplishing this goal. Maybe we need to figure out new and different syntactic constructs that are clean and simple, but do not pretend to be something they are not?

wonnage 5y ago
How are they deceptive? I don't know where the idea that these keywords somehow mimic synchronous code comes from.
- mpweiher 5y ago
  It's not the keywords that are deceptive. It's keeping the rest of the code in a structure that is extremely different from what actually happens. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3297280.3297528 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3297280.3297528 "To solve JavaScript's callback hell problem, several language mechanisms like Promise and async/await have already been introduced to JavaScript. Using async/await, which is the most promising one, callback hell code can be rewritten to another simple and shallow nested code with (almost) the same behavior. Unfortunately, however, it is still difficult to precisely understand the execution order of the rewritten async/await code, because the semantics of async/await is difficult. This paper first clarifies that this problem is caused by the difficulty of the async/await semantics. Then, we propose and implement a novel async/await visualizer called AwaitViz, to support for programmers to understand the execution order of async/await. Our contribution is twofold. First, we show the feasibility of implementing the visualizer AwaitViz based on source-code instrumentation, which provides precise information on the JavaScript's asynchronous behavior. Second, we show the difficulties and limitations of implementing AwaitViz."

wonnage 5y ago

How are they deceptive? I don't know where the idea that these keywords somehow mimic synchronous code comes from.

mpweiher 5y ago
It's not the keywords that are deceptive. It's keeping the rest of the code in a structure that is extremely different from what actually happens. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3297280.3297528 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3297280.3297528 "To solve JavaScript's callback hell problem, several language mechanisms like Promise and async/await have already been introduced to JavaScript. Using async/await, which is the most promising one, callback hell code can be rewritten to another simple and shallow nested code with (almost) the same behavior. Unfortunately, however, it is still difficult to precisely understand the execution order of the rewritten async/await code, because the semantics of async/await is difficult. This paper first clarifies that this problem is caused by the difficulty of the async/await semantics. Then, we propose and implement a novel async/await visualizer called AwaitViz, to support for programmers to understand the execution order of async/await. Our contribution is twofold. First, we show the feasibility of implementing the visualizer AwaitViz based on source-code instrumentation, which provides precise information on the JavaScript's asynchronous behavior. Second, we show the difficulties and limitations of implementing AwaitViz."