frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Understanding Java's Asynchronous Journey

https://amritpandey.io/understanding-javas-asynchronous-journey/
17•hardasspunk•1y ago

Comments

Neywiny•1y ago
I don't get it. The first example in JS vs Java looks very similar. Now all those other code blocks, they certainly have more going on but idk how that compares to JS. And to answer the questions:

A completable future is something that in the future may complete. I think that's self explanatory. A promise seems equally vague.

Boilerplate looks the same. JS is just a function, Java they put a class around it. Java requires exception handling which is annoying but having fought errors in async JS, I'll take all I can get.

API is eh. Sure. But that's not even shown in this example so I have no idea.

So JS saves like 3 lines? Is that really so much better?

cogman10•1y ago
> A completable future is something that in the future may complete. I think that's self explanatory.

But not the reason for the name :).

It's called "completable" because these futures have a method on them `future.complete("value")`. Before their introduction, there was a `Future` API that java had.

nogridbag•1y ago
Yeah that first example is rather poor. And it uses the word boilerpate to seemingly refer to the stuff unrelated to the async code (class declaration, exception handling, main method).

I don't use Java async much, but I guess if you have a utility method named "setTimeout" than the example can simply be:

    public CompletableFuture<String> fetchData() {
        return setTimeout(() -> "Data Fetched", 10000);
    }

    public void loadData() {
        fetchData().thenAccept(System.out::println);
    }
Which is simpler or equivalent to the JS example.
stevoski•1y ago
The Java 1 example uses lambdas, which were introduced in Java 8.

It’s probably intentional, because it allows showing the Java 1 Thread approach succinctly.

But as long-term Java person, I find it jarring.

philipwhiuk•1y ago
Java's had `var` since Java 10 but apparently the author deliberately ignored that to make the example as wordy as possible.

It's a little tiring to read a Java example with an entry-point (the public-static-void bit) and then a JavaScript example without one.

If you strip that out the original Java is:

  var future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
        try {
                Thread.sleep(10000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            return "Data Fetched";
        });
  future.thenAccept(result -> System.out.println(result));
  System.out.println("Prints first"); // prints before the async result
which is only obtuse due to checked exceptions.

Arguably it's still a different thing you're doing, because it's not scheduling a task on a pool, it's creating a thread which sleeps for 10 seconds.

elric•1y ago
`var` is very unhelpful in situations where the reader might not be entirely familiar with the context, especially when using factory methods.

I don't think the author was trying to make the example "wordy" so much as "clear".

cogman10•1y ago
Also, arguably, the wrong way to do something like this.

The author uses `setTimeout` for javascript. The equivalent for Java is either the `Timer` class or a `ScheduledExecutorService`. Doing a `Thread.sleep` simply isn't how you should approach this.

With that in mind, if you want to use both these things and keep the completable future interface you'd have to do soemthing like this.

    ScheduledExecutorService scheduler = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
    var future = new CompletableFuture<String>();
    scheduler.schedule(()->future.complete("Data Fetched"), 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    future.thenAccept(result -> System.out.println(result));
    System.out.println("Prints first"); // prints before the async result
    scheduler.shutdown();
AtlasBarfed•1y ago
Does no.js still limit you to a single core/CPU use?

Or as a node successfully been able to start utilizing more cores underneath its JavaScript single thread model. It presents the programmer?

I just remember early node.js from like 15 years ago and the single background task limitation of JavaScript running in a web page.

Cuz you got async code is nice, but what you really wanted to be able to harness in modern CPUs is multi-core

That said, I've been looking for an article like this for a while, although I think there are other associated libraries that also had steps in here. I do think the jvm adopted a lot of those, but I'm not sure if they actually are better than the original extension libraries.

msgilligan•1y ago
I simplified the first example to:

  void main() {
      CompletableFuture<String> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(this::asyncMethod);
      future.thenAccept(result -> IO.println(result));
      IO.println("Prints first");             // prints before the async result
      future.join();                          // Wait for future to complete
  }

  String asyncMethod() {
      try {
          Thread.sleep(10000);
      } catch (InterruptedException e) {
          return "Interrupted";
      }
      return "Data Fetched";
  }
I made the following changes:

1. Move the asynchronous function called in the CompletableFuture to its own method

2. Use Java 25 "instance main method" (see JEP 25: https://openjdk.org/jeps/512)

3. Use Java 25 IO.println() to simplify console output

4. Instead of throwing a fatal exception on interruption, return "Interrupted" immediately.

5. Use future.join() so the main method waits for the future to complete and the "Data fetched" output is printed.

This program can be run directly from source with `java Example.java`. (If you're using Java 24 or a version of Java 25 prior to EA 22, you need to use `java --enable-preview Example.java`)

Here is a modified version of the example that interrupts the thread:

  void main() {
      ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
      CompletableFuture<String> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(this::asyncMethod, executor);
      future.thenAccept(result -> IO.println(result));
      IO.println("Prints first");             // prints before the async result
      executor.shutdownNow();
      future.join();                          // Wait for future to complete
  }

  String asyncMethod() {
      try {
          Thread.sleep(10000);
      } catch (InterruptedException e) {
          return "Interrrupted";
      }
      return "Data Fetched";
  }
wpollock•1y ago
In Java 24, new features support educational and demonstration use. You don't need a class to wrap your main method, which also has a simpler signature. To compare JavaScript with Java examples, one should make use of these features.

While the examples may need some work, I enjoyed this post, it nicely shows the evolution of Java concurrency.

The hardest working font in Manhattan (2025)

https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
131•dcminter•5d ago•15 comments

llama.cpp

https://llama.app
110•kristianpaul•2h ago•44 comments

Compression is prediction

https://ngrok.com/blog/compression-is-prediction
454•nikolay•11h ago•191 comments

WorldClaw Agentic 3D open-world generation at scale

https://tencent-hunyuan.github.io/Hunyuan3D-WorldClaw/
195•EwanG•9h ago•57 comments

The lifesaving secret hidden inside a horseshoe crab's blue blood

https://whdh.com/news/the-lifesaving-secret-hidden-inside-a-horseshoe-crabs-blue-blood-and-the-ra...
63•andsoitis•5h ago•16 comments

Nvidia Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and NeMo Switchyard

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nemotron-lightning-switchyard-rtx-dgx/
213•droidjj•11h ago•110 comments

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

https://stolen-thoughts.com/
590•quantumgarbage•17h ago•267 comments

The Human Is the Loop

https://brentfitzgerald.com/posts/the-human-is-the-loop/
59•burnto•4h ago•25 comments

Mojo 1.0

https://www.modular.com/blog/modular-26-5-mojo-1-0-is-here
363•dayanruben•14h ago•166 comments

OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

https://www.ft.com/content/e49dfb75-f841-4466-a577-f7aaff8779a0
384•ilamont•18h ago•391 comments

A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy.

https://refp.se/articles/your-shell-and-the-lazy-exclamation-mark
16•refp•5d ago•4 comments

Company Offering '100% Human-Written, Never AI' Medical Research Is 100% AI

https://www.404media.co/company-offering-100-human-written-never-ai-peer-review-is-entirely-ai/
157•Anon84•4h ago•34 comments

Grok Bot

https://x.ai/bot
244•rvz•13h ago•198 comments

New Bedford police officer accused of using Flock cameras to track ex-partner

https://newbedfordlight.org/new-bedford-police-officer-accused-of-using-flock-cameras-to-track-an...
166•newsomix9xl•5h ago•79 comments

Making holograms with a pen plotter

https://blog.jordan.matelsky.com/Penplotter-holography/
149•DemiGuru•12h ago•15 comments

Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo

https://photosynthesis.camera
256•sajomes•3d ago•242 comments

Flatworms, Ion Channels, and Burning Mouths

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/flatworms-ion-channels-and-burning-mouths
23•surprisetalk•1d ago•1 comments

Show HN: Line9 – A Mermaid rendering engine with its own layout

https://line9.ai/diagram
61•jumpalongjim•5d ago•14 comments

Show HN: Tamron Lens Utility Alternative on Linux

https://github.com/yikerman/tamron-lens-control
54•xiaoyu2006•4d ago•0 comments

Go is an ideal language for AI-assisted software engineering

https://developers.googleblog.com/why-go-is-an-ideal-language-for-ai-assisted-software-engineering/
335•0xedb•14h ago•394 comments

DARPA heavy lift challenge ends with winner at a 3.84:1 payload to weight ratio

https://dronexl.co/2026/08/10/darpa-lift-challenge-results-avidrone/
10•daau•3h ago•0 comments

Neutrinos from Deep Inside Earth Provide a New Picture of the Mantle

https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrinos-from-deep-inside-earth-provide-a-new-picture-of-the-mant...
33•rbanffy•17h ago•2 comments

Jolt: Clojure compiler implemented with Chez Scheme

https://jolt-lang.github.io
186•mark_l_watson•3d ago•63 comments

England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75gk620r22o
520•stevekemp•18h ago•372 comments

London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

https://www.btp.police.uk/news/btp/news/england/btp-expands-live-facial-recognition-lfr-trial-int...
294•BlueBerry2001•21h ago•301 comments

CVE-2026-53361 AF_Unix GC vs. MSG_PEEK use-after-free container escape

https://github.com/sgkdev/bad_garbage
10•eyberg•3h ago•0 comments

CSS properties you should know for better text designs

https://master.dev/blog/typographic-css-tricks/
106•ibobev•13h ago•14 comments

Manus will return to operating as an independent company

https://manus.im/blog/a-note-to-our-users
152•thm•16h ago•73 comments

How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

https://ironicsans.ghost.io/how-we-used-to-get-jobs/
133•speckx•12h ago•105 comments

pg_clickhouse v0.10: Subquery pushdown and 1000x faster TPC-H queries

https://clickhouse.com/blog/pg_clickhouse-whats-new-july-2026
54•saisrirampur•9h ago•4 comments