What Async Promised and What It Delivered
6 hours ago
- #concurrency
- #programming-paradigms
- #async-await
- OS threads are expensive due to memory and scheduling overhead, leading to the C10K problem for high-concurrency systems.
- Callbacks solve resource issues by using event loops but cause callback hell, fractured error handling, and lack cancellation.
- Promises/futures improve ergonomics with composable chains and consolidated error handling, but introduce one-shot limitations and silent errors.
- Async/await makes asynchronous code look sequential, improving readability, but leads to function coloring, ecosystem fragmentation, and parallelization traps.
- Each wave (callbacks, promises, async/await) solves previous problems but introduces new structural costs, affecting codebases and ecosystems.