What is Synchronous Javascript?

When a certain webpage tries to load, your browser looks for a general guideline or direction. Let’s take a look at how JavaScript works. There are two options: synchronous and asynchronous. In this example, we’ll show you how it all works with our discussion on asynchronous scripts.

In a synchronous order, the browser loads JavaScript in sequence with each step requiring the previous one to complete before it can start. This has many positives on paper but when put into practice actually slows downloading time which could cost companies visitor loyalty and revenue gains by slowing down webpage response times.

The web development community is exploring an alternative to JavaScript, Asynchronous JavaScript, which can execute commands in parallel and doesn’t wait for one command to finish before executing another. One disadvantage of this proposed change is that scripts that rely on synchronous loading (i.e., the document.write() construct) may not function properly.

As the ideal solution for this is still being worked on, web developers should periodically test their website speeds and make sure that they’re maximizing performance to the best of their ability.