Promises/Futures

Promises and Futures are programming abstractions used to handle asynchronous operations, representing a value that may not be available yet but will be resolved (or rejected) at some point in the future. They provide a cleaner alternative to callback-based patterns, enabling better error handling and composition of async tasks. While often used interchangeably, 'Promise' typically refers to the object that produces the value, and 'Future' to the object that consumes it, though implementations vary across languages.

Also known as: Async/Await, Deferred, Task, Future, Promise

Why learn Promises/Futures?

Developers should learn Promises/Futures to manage asynchronous code more effectively, such as in web development for API calls, file I/O, or database queries, avoiding 'callback hell' and improving code readability. They are essential in modern JavaScript/TypeScript, Python (asyncio), and Java (CompletableFuture) for building responsive applications that handle concurrent operations without blocking the main thread.

Learning Resources

• docs: MDN Web Docs: Promise
• tutorial: JavaScript Promises: An Introduction
• tutorial: Async/Await in Modern JavaScript
• docs: Python asyncio Futures
• tutorial: Java CompletableFuture Tutorial