Skip to main content

Final Thoughts

What is the best way to handle async code?​

There are many ways to handle async code. You can use callbacks, promises, async/await, or even generators. But which one is the best?

The answer is that there is no best way. It depends on your personal preference and the specific use case. If you are using a library that uses callbacks, then you have to use callbacks. If you are using a library that uses promises, then you have to use promises.

I personally prefer promises and async/await. I think they are the easiest to understand and use in most cases. But I also use callbacks ( and generators) in some cases. In my opinion you should learn all of them and use the one that is best for your use case. You can even use a mix of them. For example, you can use callbacks for some tasks and promises for other tasks.

Pros and Cons of Callbacks, Promises, and Async/Await​

Let's discuss the pros and cons of each of them. It will help you to decide which one is best for specific use cases.

Callbacks​

Pros​

  • Simple and easy to understand
  • Works well with older browsers

Cons​

  • Callback hell - Nested callbacks make the code hard to read and maintain
  • Hard to debug
  • Can be difficult to reason about in complex codebase

Promises​

Pros​

  • Allows for more concise and cleaner code, especially when working with multiple async operations
  • Makes it easier to reason about async code
  • Can be used with async/await (more on this below)

Cons​

  • Requires a basic understanding of promises

Async/Await​

Pros​

  • Allows for writing async code that looks and behaves like sync code, making it easier to read and write
  • Can be used with promises

Cons​

  • Requires support for async/await (not supported in older browsers)

Conclusion​

In this article, we learned about async code and how to handle it. We also learned about callbacks, promises, async/await, and generators. We also discussed the pros and cons of each of them.

I hope you found this article useful. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.