Asynchronous Programming

In my early Java2Script development days, I think a lot about asynchronous programming. AJAX was hot and is still hot. What is most important factor in AJAX technologies? I think it is "Asynchronous". Without asynchronous programming, visitors still need to waste their time waiting for browser to fetch the next page. What a bad user experience.

In fact, asynchronous programming is not an easy work. Lots of callbacks, lots of threads, lots of locks or semaphores. All these stuffs may be messed up into an unmaintainable geeky thing.

Actually, if there are tools helping to design and maintain such codes, it is not a big job. If you use Java, you won't get stuck at those threads of synchronized locks, as lots of debug tools help you figure out how those things work together at any moment you want to take a look. In fact, there are lots asynchronous programmings in Java design patterns or codes. But in Java world, asynchronous programming is not an outstanding features, and it is seldom discussed as an important issue.

But in JavaScript world, in browser world, asynchronous programming is a huge thing. In JavaScript (also known as EMCAScript)? language specification, there are no threads, no semaphores, no locks. All things are designed in synchronized mode. And before AJAX was hot, there are no robust tools for developers to write and debug JavaScript. If JavaScript sources file size exceeds 100K, it would be a hard-ass job to maintain. And if there are 3 layers of callbacks, it would drive developers crazy to develop new features. From my early experience, I designed a web form with digital signature functions, I used Java Applet in the back-end and used AJAX-style dialogs. And in oder to make a correct call from dialogs to Java Applet, its parameters may be passed through about 4-6 callback layers, because there are security issues over JavaScript calling Java Applet and Java Applet's own sandbox mechanism. At that time, I sometimes found myself at the peak of being crazy or being collapsed.

So as I explain, asynchronous programming is not funny. And we would like to accept synchronous programming. Now let's take a look at those Java synchronous programming which need to be JavaScript asynchronous programming:

Java snippet:

Display display = Display.getDefault();
SimpleSWTRPC shell = new SimpleSWTRPC(display, SWT.SHELL_TRIM);
shell.open();
shell.layout();
while (!shell.isDisposed()) { // waiting loop
if (!display.readAndDispatch())
display.sleep();
}
// continue other codes...

But in JavaScript, the above waiting loop will use up all CPU times and freeze browser. So such waiting loop must be avoided. And callback mechanism is used:

var display = $wt.widgets.Display.getDefault ();
var shell = new org.java2script.demo.simplerpc.SimpleSWTRPC (display, 1264);
shell.open ();
shell.layout ();
Sync2Async.block (shell, this, function () {
// continue other codes...
});

The above codes use Sync2Async technology. Such technologies have lots of defects. The biggest defect is that it can not stop browser to execute the following codes outside the method closure. For example, if the above codes are in method #openUpDialog, and in another method say #setUp call this method and then call other methods:

this.openUpDialog();
this.checkState();
this.sendOutRequest();

When the above codes are executed in Java mode, #checkState and #sendOutRequest will never be called until user closes the dialog. But in JavaScript Sync2Async mode, the callback technology can not block browser from executing #checkState and #sendOutRequest, which may result in incorrect result. This is the key defect of Sync2Async technology. Even though it has defects, such technology helps developes a lots for some simple tasks.

In order to fulfill some complicate task, designers should design the whole architecture as asynchronous programming patter from the beginning. Even in Java language, all things in asynchronous mode are still difficult.

More should be discussed for this issue.