Understanding Asynchronous JavaScript — the Event Loop
JavaScript is a single-threaded programming language which means only one thing can happen at a time. That is, the JavaScript engine can only process one statement at a time in a single thread. While the single-threaded languages simplify writing code because you don’t have to worry about the concurrency issues, this also means you can’t perform long operations such as network access without blocking the main thread. Imagine requesting some data from an API. Depending upon the situation the server might take some time to process the request while blocking the main thread making the web page unresponsive. That’s where asynchronous JavaScript comes into play. Using asynchronous JavaScript (such as callbacks, promises, and async/await), you can perform long network requests without blocking the main thread. It’s not necessary that you know how JavaScript works under the hood, but it’s helpful to know how it works :) So without further ado, Let’s get started :) Tip...