Explaining the browser's event loop, tasks, and microtasks
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderI've been trying to explain the JS event loop to a couple of our interns recently and this is an amazing illustration of the basics and the not-so-basics. Thanks!
I didn't realize why my browsers (Firefox, iOS Safari) were correctly handling the tests, despite the article indicating they were not compliant. Then I realized the article is from 2015. The content is still really useful, though. A good understanding of JS tasks & microtasks and HTML jobs is really useful for diagnosing the inevitable front-end weirdness encountered during development when using any of the major frontend frameworks (which contain a lot of abstraction that separates the developer from these…
I don't get the point why to predict the execution order in some asynchronous code?
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 311
- Total comments
- 33
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-08-17 | Explaining the browser's event loop, tasks, and microtasksFirst breakout · Best thread | jaffathecake | 152 | 21 |
| 2017-05-24 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules | bpierre | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-07-10 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules | koolba | 1 | 0 |
| 2019-02-09 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules (2015) | zwliew | 2 | 0 |
| 2019-10-08 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules (2015) | gurpreetsatwal | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-02-22 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules (2015) | rbanffy | 126 | 10 |
| 2023-06-28 | Tasks, microtasks, queues and schedules (2015)Latest 20+ point return | nvahalik | 26 | 2 |