What is a promise in javascript ? how does it solve callback hell issue?

Comments

[Scott Hannen]

This post: scotthannen.org/blog/2016/03/01/ch...
Shows a side-by-side (or above-and-below) example of the same code with callbacks and with promises. It was a few years ago. I probably wouldn't cram all those promises into one line of code like that. But even still it shows the simplification.

[Dineshbabu Thoota]

Thanks for sharing the article :)

[Guy Royse]

A promise in JavaScript is an abstraction around the idea of an asynchronous callback that supports chaining. This makes the code read to the humans like it is procedural. Do step #1 then step #2 then step #3 all while allowing the computer to handle all the asynchronicity in the all the calls.

It turns this code...

doAsyncThing(input, function(result) {
  doAnotherAysncThingUsingResult(result, function(anotherResult) {
    doFinalAsyncThing(anotherResult, function(finalResult) {
      console.log("It is finished: ", finalResult);
    });
  });
});

...into this code.

doAsyncThing(input)
  .then(result => doAnotherAysncThingUsingResult(result))
  .then(anotherResult => doFinalAsyncThing(anotherResult))
  .then(finalResult => console.log("It is finished: "", finalResult));

I blogged about this a few months ago on my company's blog here.

[Dineshbabu Thoota]

Thank you Guy !! that was a neat and simple explanation.

[rhymes]

Hope this helps in solving the "callback hell":

Awaiting for async promises in JavaScript

rhymes

#javascript

[Donald Merand]

It's funny you should ask, I was just reading the MDN Docs about this yesterday. They explain the whole concept of Promises really well. Their explanation of what promises give you vs. callbacks is a good one:

Unlike old-style passed-in callbacks, a promise comes with some guarantees:
• Callbacks will never be called before the completion of the current run of the JavaScript event loop.
• Callbacks added with .then even after the success or failure of the asynchronous operation, will be called, as above.
• Multiple callbacks may be added by calling .then several times, to be executed independently in insertion order.

But the most immediate benefit of promises is chaining.

Basically promises are much more composable + predictable than callbacks, but I heartily recommend reading through the whole article to get a better overall idea.

[Dineshbabu Thoota]

Thank you Donald.i am going through the MDN article.