Thanks for the shout out! I'm still amazed how well that talk struck a nerve and it's a real kick seeing people getting something out of it 8 (!) years later.

That video was the first time I felt like I understood the Javscript stack. Really grateful you put that talk together.

I watched the video just recently, and almost immediately put the knowledge to use in a project. Finally the setTimeout(0)'s make sense.

Wow small world! Thanks to you for taking the time to explore this topic and putting such a great presentation together. I'd wager it's a must-watch for anyone who keeps asking "what the heck is the event loop anyway?" haha

I liked swyx's talk on React Hooks: Getting Closure on React Hooks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJP1E-Y-xyo

I wrote this one over the course of a few months that summarized everything I could think of on the topic - https://www.taniarascia.com/asynchronous-javascript-event-lo...

I've your blog bookmarked and I'll be reading it this weekend haha. Thanks for putting it together!

>Callbacks are not asynchronous by nature, but can be used for asynchronous purposes.

Glad you mention this because some people make it since like callbacks are a de-facto asynchronous-based concept. Callbacks are simply anonymous functions or lambdas that you pass to asynchronous functions so you can work with the produced values. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Thanks! Yeah, the callback thing tripped me up when I was learning because so many articles just glossed over the whole thing so I had to dig a little deeper and play around to understand it more.

More accurately -

Callbacks are anonymous functions [or references to named functions] that you pass to asynchronous [or synchronous] functions so you can work with the produced values [or do anything else]

> creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else

Tangentially, that is a marvelous way to learn something. I often find that in explaining a complex topic I uncover gaps in my own understanding.

I've realized it's so easy to read or watch something and fool yourself into thinking that you know the topic.

For example, coming up with your examples helps a lot. For instance, I found most of the examples quite underwhelming and confusing so I ended up creating my own asynchronous functions to demonstrate the concepts as I go along.

The Montessori model

The event loop one was a must-watch video for anyone who write Javascript. It even secured me a job offer.

I'd argue that you cannot understand asynchronous programming in JS without knowing how the call stack in the JS engine, web APIs (provided by the browser or NodeJS as far as I know), the callback/(macro)task queue, microtask queue, and the event loop all fit together. The JS engine is a small component of that entire environment, and not being aware of it is like walking in the dark with dim candle.

The fact I didn't know about these concepts is the reason why I always struggled to understand examples involving setTimeout, setInterval, etc.

Most videos on YouTube, even from well-known personalities in the programming YouTube community, simply jump into things without context at all even when the videos are titled "for beginners". Even some books and docs simply describe the spec without providing context and motivation.

Edit... Forgot to say Philip does an outstanding job in that video. He's even humble enough to admit it took him a few months to grasp what was going on.

So glad you found The Story of Async JS helpful! Appreciate the shout-out.

Thanks for your video! After I finished watching it and going to your channel's page, all I could think about was "Wow I hit jackpot".

Funnily enough "The Story of React" started playing right after, and I didn't even notice I was listening to another video.

Commenting for later. Wish you could "favorite" comments.

You can. Click on the time for the comment. Then you can favorite it.

Wow this is well hidden. Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, it needs to be pulled out.

Yes, I found it when I noticed the empty comment favorites on my profile.

great tip! thanks!

You absolutely can. But beware: these are public.

Seems like a feature.

Yes.

> Commenting for later. Wish you could "favorite" comments.

Or, you can upvote it (comment)

I wish someone can suggest me similar links for Python. Asynchronous programming has always been elusive to me.

https://superfastpython.com/python-asyncio/ - Python Asyncio: The Complete Guide

Effective Python has a great chapter that goes over concurrency and parallelism using threads, coroutines and subprocesses. There are a lot of non-trivial code examples that the author gradually shows how to improve with more advanced language features over the course of several chapters so it's not all thrown at you at once, enabling you see benefits and pitfalls of approaching problems with different techniques. I highly suggest it even beyond learning async features.

These might help:

* Async Python in real life - https://guicommits.com/async-python-in-real-life/

* Python Concurrency: The Tricky Bits - https://python.hamel.dev/concurrency/

async programming IS hard to get your head around.

The resources you suggest are spot on.

AND, async programming will really only click when you do lots of it.

Read tons of async resources like the ones above, write lots of async code. One day you'll realise it's second nature.

Thanks a lot, I'll keep this in mind and try to write as much async code as possible.

>One day you'll realise it's second nature.

This is great but then the curse of knowledge hits you hard haha

>> write lots of async code.

> Thanks a lot, I'll keep this in mind and try to write as much async code as possible.

Only write async code if the advantages outweigh the downsides, not just by default in order to do some training for yourself. Unless it is in a hobby project where training yourself is part of the goal.

i finally got callbacks this year when i pictured someone tossing a yo-yo into an elevator going down a few random floors and rolling out. the elevator leaves but i am still yanking on that yo-yo some random floor.

This is my learning goal right now, I can’t thank you enough!

You're welcome! Rewatch Philip's video as many times as you need until the concepts sink in, before you move into learning promises and await/async [1]. Similarly for Jake Archibald's video.

Good luck!

[1]: from what I gather asynchronous programming using callbacks isn't used anymore but it might be instructive to start with it, understand the issues with it, and why promises replaced this style.

Anything for React (modern versions)?

The beta docs are really good. I just keep re-reading them, particularly "You might not need an effect", and I still keep finding nuggets that surprise me.

No because the React team changes their approach every other year anyways.