[dheera]

The main problem is that many Python libraries come in only sync flavor and using them together with asyncio is a pain.

NodeJS libraries are almost all standardized to async now. Hell, even Tensorflow.js can give you Promises of computation results.

[heavyset_go]

Seems pretty painless to me:

    $ python3 -m asyncio
    >>> from requests import get
    >>> url = 'https://example.com'
    >>> response = await asyncio.to_thread(get, url)

A lot of Python libraries now offer async APIs, have async support on their short term roadmaps, or other async projects have replaced them.

[dayjah]

oh neat! I did not know about asyncio.to_thread; I've been using the longer form thread executor pattern.

[simonw]

I hadn't seen that either - looks like it's new in Python 3.9: https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio-task.html#asyncio....

[heavyset_go]

And if you aren't using 3.9, the anyio package has a run_async() function in its to_thread module[1] that works the same way as asyncio's to_thread() coroutine function, and the anyio solution is compatible with both asyncio and trio.

[1] https://anyio.readthedocs.io/en/stable/threads.html