Is Conditional Awaiting Misleading?
Conditional awaiting is a feature in JavaScript that allows you to execute a block of code asynchronously if a condition is true and synchronously if the condition is false. This can be a useful way to improve the performance of your code, but it can also be misleading if it's not used carefully.
One potential problem with conditional awaiting is that it can make it difficult to reason about the code. For example, the following code uses conditional awaiting to execute a block of code asynchronously if the condition is true:
if (condition) {
await conditionalCodeBlock;
} else {
unconditionalCodeBlock;
}
This code is easy to read and understand, but it can be difficult to tell at a glance whether the block of code will be executed asynchronously or synchronously. This can lead to errors if you're not careful.
Another potential problem with conditional awaiting is that it can introduce race conditions. For example, the following code uses conditional awaiting to execute a block of code asynchronously if the condition is true:
async function conditionalAwait() {
if (condition) {
await conditionalCodeBlock;
} else {
unconditionalCodeBlock;
}
}
This code is more verbose than the previous example, but it's also more explicit about the asynchronous nature of the code. However, it's still possible for a race condition to occur if the condition changes while the block of code is being executed. This can lead to errors if you're not careful.
In general, it's best to avoid using conditional awaiting if possible. If you do need to use it, be sure to use it carefully and be aware of the potential problems that it can cause.
In the majority of cases, it actually doesn't matter for any reasoning whether the code executes synchronously or not. If that is the case, you can choose either syntax, and you'd prefer the shorter and simpler one, in particular without the repetition.
However if you have one of the rare cases where it matters for reasoning, you should strife towards making reasoning easier by consistently executing the code always asynchronously. In your example, that might be
await (condition ? conditionalCodeBlock : undefined);
unconditionalCodeBlock;