It might be worthwhile to expand a bit in the docs on the problems you see with JS concurrency (why you think it sucks, maybe some examples) and then show how ts-chan fixes those problems.
Honestly, I've been struggling to come up with examples that aren't extremely contrived, but are still self-contained enough to easily demonstrate. It might actually be easier to just document patterns, though.
I think y'all have very fair points, for the record.
Unfortunately it is a lot easier to write documentation for an audience that shares the same context / background / experience. The README was written with an audience in mind consisting primarily of those familiar with Go (or more convoluted "communicating sequential processes" implementations), who were frustrated that things that are very easy in Go, are so much harder in JS. It's not something I considered deeply, but I was imagining that it was unlikely that someone would be searching for "channels in JS" without a base level of understanding.
I work/have worked with some pretty talented people, but (in the past) I've found it difficult to convey the value of the sorts of patterns that `ts-chan` is intended to enable, to those without first-hand experience with such patterns.
I’m pretty sure you could articulate how exactly this “better” pattern works versus the default “bad” one. Right now the readme is a pile of illegible jargon to me as a non-go person.
I will say though, I personally get the impression that attempts at "concurrency" in JavaScript (in production code) are quite rare, which I attribute to how difficult it is.
That is to say, I don't know if there really _is_ a "default pattern".
Could you give a side by side comparison (with and without ts-chan) so we can better understand what kind of problem it is attempting to solve?
My understanding was that Go channels / CSP solves concurrency in a multithreaded environment where reads/writes need to coordinated, but since JavaScript is single threaded, I'm not sure I understand why they would be useful in JavaScript. In JavaScript concurrent tasks can simply communicate by writing/reading shared variables.
I am working on better examples, but they are going to take me a while, at the rate I'm currently going.
To be clear, `ts-chan` is not intended to target any use case already addressed by promises or async/await.
You mentioned CSP so I'll assume you've got context re: that topic. I believe I understand your point re: synchronisation between threads, which is fair, but I'd point out that race conditions still exist in JavaScript - I'd even say they are common, at least in my experience. It is easiest to maintain the integrity of the internal state of complex data structures when only a single logical process can mutate that state at a time.
Example in a similar vein: Firewall daemon that accepts commands over RPC, and performs system configuration, in a linear, blocking fashion, to avoid blowing things up (say it runs `iptables` and/or `nft` commands, under the hood). It would be trivial to have a select statement, with a channel per command (or just one, perhaps), receiving the input payload. In JS, the response would probably be via callback, rather than a ping-pong channel recv then send, or the like.
It wasn't a firewall daemon (although it did interact with firewalld and more), but that's exactly a pattern I've implemented in Go, for a past employer. I don't imagine anyone is keen to implement such a thing in JavaScript, but it's a pattern that applies to anything that mutates state, especially if that state is fragile or complex.
I think it would be useful to generally explain what these primitives do and how they interact with each other. A lot of JS/TS users haven’t used golang, but would appreciate a better solution if they understand it (me included).
Regarding the default vs better, a comparative example with a real concurrent task coded with/out your library would be my preferred way to understand it clearly.
I somewhat disagree with this take, as I felt the intro and "The microtask queue: a footgun" [1] section in the README does an adequate job of laying out the 'why' and the problems with JS's concurrency model. However, it does presume some understanding of Go's channels, so a more explicit example contrasting ts-chan with native JS concurrency could better clarify its benefits for those less familiar. Granted, there is an /example directory, but the benchmarking complexity muddles the readability. Regardless, upon a quick run-through, it looks to be an A-grade library that seems promising for practical use, plus well-referenced, composed, and quite thorough.
Not necessarily, and after giving it more thought, I somewhat retract my previous comment. You do make a good point; it's explained well, but not in concrete terms without assumptions. So, I'll take a stab at it: The core idea is that async functions A and B can communicate through Chan instances, with the Select class overseeing multiple Chan operations, waiting for one to be ready before proceeding. While ts-chan might seem unnecessary for just two async functions, what if you had to manage 8, 16, 32, or more? At some point, Promise.all won't cut it, and that's where ts-chan comes to the rescue. It defines a protocol for channels to better manage communication between asynchronous functions in JS, offering a structure similar to how goroutines communicate in Go.
I might be completely wrong, but the impression I got from your comment is that you haven't been exposed to many implementations using non-trivial concurrency :)
Fair call though, I guess. It doesn't really matter, but I'm certainly used to TypeScript and JavaScript.
Maybe because we probably shouldn’t be doing that in JavaScript. I primarily use Go and work with Go routines often but I’ve never wanted to do anything remotely close to it in JavaScript. If I wanted proper concurrency, I would be using Go, not JS
Honestly, I've been struggling to come up with examples that aren't extremely contrived, but are still self-contained enough to easily demonstrate. It might actually be easier to just document patterns, though.