7. Concurrency

JavaScript was designed as an embedded scripting language. JavaScript programs do not run as stand-alone applications, but as scripts in the context of a larger application. The flagship example is, of course, the web browser. A browser can have many windows and tabs running multiple web applications, each responding to various inputs and stimuli: user actions via keyboard, mouse, or touch, the arrival of data from the network, or timed alarms. These events can occur at any point—even simultaneously—during the lifetime of a web application. And for each kind of event, the application may wish to be notified of information and respond with custom behavior.

JavaScript’s approach to writing programs that respond to multiple concurrent ...

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