promises-clone

Exercise: Promises

Promises are a very powerful abstraction on top of callbacks and many asynchronous libraries are starting to use them by default. They are included as a language standard in ES6, and with future versions building them up even further, now is a great time to learn.

This sprint is designed to ease you into using implementing and consuming promises by comparing them to the callback pattern you are already familiar with.

Setup

npm install

Bare Minimum Requirements

Review the Node style callback pattern

Asynchronous functions in JavaScript should follow the node style callback pattern. There are two conditions for this pattern:

1. The function expects a callback as the last argument
2. The callback is invoked with (err, results)

Here's an example of consuming Node's built-in fs.readFile. Notice that the callback we pass into it meets the two conditions above:

fs.readFile(__dirname + '/README.md', 'utf8', function (err, content) {
  console.log('Example from callbackReview.js')
  if (err) {
    console.log('fs.readFile failed :(\n', err)
  } else {
    console.log('fs.readFile successfully completed :)\n', content)
  }
});

• Complete the exercises in bare_minimum/callbackReview.js and make the Callback review tests pass

Use the Promise constructor

There are five steps to writing a promise-returning function:

1. Create a promise with the new Promise constructor
2. Do something async, then... 3. Pass the successful value into the resolve function
   • this value will be made available in the next then block
   • only 1 value can ever be passed into resolve 4. Pass any errors into the reject function
   • this error will be made available in the catch block
3. return the promise instance. This should be a synchronous step

• Complete the exercises in bare_minimum/promiseConstructor.js and make the Promise constructor tests pass

Promisify existing functions

There's an easier way to create a promise returning version of a function that exactly follows the node style callback pattern used previously. This technique is called promisification, and implemented different in each library

All of the work done in promiseConstructor.js can be done in these three lines:

var nodeStyle = require('./callbackReview.js');
var pluckFirstLineFromFileAsync = Promise.promisify(nodeStyle.pluckFirstLineFromFile)
var getStatusCodeAsync = Promise.promisify(nodeStyle.getStatusCode)

Assuming all functions in a library precisely follow the node style callback pattern, you can even promisify an entire library!

Promise.promisifyAll(fs);
// Promisifies all 'fs' functions and gives us an `Async` suffixed version
// For example - `fs.readFileAsync`, `fs.writeFileAsync`

Read more: http://bluebirdjs.com/docs/api/promisification.html

• Complete the exercises in bare_minimum/promisification.js and make the Promisification tests pass

Chain promises together

Remember the pyramid of doom?

var addNewUserToDatabase = function(user, callback) {
  // (1) See if the user already exists
  db.findUserInDatabase(user, function(err, existingUser) {
    if (err) {
      callback(err, null)
    } else if (existingUser) {
      callback('User already exists!', null)
    } else {
      // (2) then, secure the user by hashing the pw
      db.hashPassword(user, function(err, securedUser) {
        if (err) {
          callback(err, null)
        } else {
          // (3) then, create and save the new secured user
          db.createAndSaveUser(securedUser, function(err, savedUser) {
            if (err) {
              callback(err, null)
            } else {
              // (4) We're finally done! Pass our new saved user along
              callback(null, savedUser)
            }
          });
        }
      });
    }
  });
};

Promises can be chained to flatten the pyramid:

Promise.promisifyAll(db)

var addNewUserToDatabaseAsync = function(user) {
  // The outermost `return` lets us continue the chain
  // after an invocation of `addNewUserToDatabaseAsync`
  return db.findUserInDatabaseAsync(user)
    .then(function(existingUser) {
      if (existingUser) {
        throw new Error('User already exists!') // Head straight to `catch`. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200
      } else {
        return user; // Return a synchronous value
      }
    })
    .then(function(newUser) {
      return db.hashPasswordAsync(newUser) // Return a promise
    })
    .then(function(securedUser) {
      return db.createAndSaveUserAsync(securedUser) // Return another promise
    })
}

• Tinker with the example inside examples/chaining.js to build intuition around promise chaining
• Complete the exercises in bare_minimum/basicChaining.js and make the Basic chaining tests pass

Advanced Content

Before moving on, remove the x from the describe block of the pending advanced specs in test/index.js

Handle asynchronous collections with Promise.all

A common asynchronous pattern:

1. Run a few async tasks (read some files, send API requests, etc.)
2. Collect or transform the data (parse data file, filter API response, etc.)
3. Run a new async task based on the collected data (more API requests, write to file/db, etc.)

The challenge becomes ensuring that all tasks in step 1 have completed before moving onto step 2. Promise.all solves this problem with grace.

• Tinker with the example inside examples/promiseDotAll.js
• Complete the exercises in advanced/collections.js and make the Collections tests pass

Advanced chaining

Use the Clarifai API to write a function that uses a deep learning algorithm to determine the common set of tags between multiple github profile pictures

• Complete the exercises in advanced/advancedChaining.js and make the Advanced chaining tests pass

Roll your own promise library

Implement Promise.promisify, Promise.all, Promise.race

• Complete the exercises in advanced/PromiseLib.js and make the PromiseLib tests pass

Nightmare Mode

• Add Babel and refactor these exercises to use async functions with the await keyword

Resources

• The Promise Cookbook
• [Video] Conjurer's Guide to Promises