Async Await Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Programming

Victoria Mills
2 min readSep 20, 2024

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I understand that you have strong feelings about async/await in programming. While it’s true that async/await can be challenging to work with, especially for developers who are new to asynchronous programming, I’d like to offer a more balanced view.

What’s good about async/await?

  • Readability: Async/await syntax is often more readable than traditional callback-based approaches. It allows developers to write asynchronous code that resembles synchronous code, making it easier to understand and maintain.
  • Error handling: Async/await makes it easier to handle errors in asynchronous code. With traditional callbacks, error handling can be cumbersome and prone to errors. Async/await provides a more straightforward way to handle errors using try-catch blocks.
  • Simplified concurrency: Async/await abstracts away some of the complexities of concurrency, making it easier for developers to write concurrent code without worrying about low-level details like threads and locks.

What are some common pain points with async/await?

  • Debugging: Debugging asynchronous code can be challenging, especially when using async/await. It can be difficult to understand the flow of execution and identify issues.
  • Performance overhead: Async/await can introduce performance overhead due to the creation of state machines and the overhead of context switching.
  • Overuse: Async/await can be overused, leading to complex and hard-to-understand code. It’s essential to use async/await judiciously and only when necessary.

Best practices for using async/await effectively

  • Use async/await sparingly: Only use async/await when necessary, and prefer synchronous code when possible.
  • Keep async/await chains short: Avoid long chains of async/await calls, as they can make code harder to understand and debug.
  • Use meaningful variable names: Use descriptive variable names to make async/await code more readable and easier to understand.

I’d be happy to elaborate on any of these points or provide more i

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