async/await improvements

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 3:29 PM, James Long <longster at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> No, you're misunderstanding me, or the way that async stuff works.
>>
>> Calling an async function returns immediately.  The called function
>> doesn't actually run until a later turn.  If it throws, there's *no
>> way*, even theoretically, to throw that error at the call-site,
>> because the program counter is already well past that point.
>>
>> If you want the call-site to throw, then you need the callsite itself
>> to be in an async function, and you need to use the "await"
>> expression, which pauses execution of the caller until the callee's
>> returned promise settles.  At that point you can throw the rejection
>> value, or return the fulfillment value.
>
> Trust me in that I've done a lot of async coding and I understand well
> how it works. The thing I may not understand fully is the current
> async/await spec.
>
> The difference is what happens with `await`, does it throw or does it
> automatically put the error on the promise returned from the async
> function. I'm essentially saying it should throw by default and you
> need to manually forward it. That's all. It doesn't really break
> anything.

Something's still going wrong in your understanding here.  "await"
*receives* a promise.  It doesn't return one.  It either returns the
fulfillment value or throws the rejection value.  The question you're
asking doesn't make sense.

~TJ