What is non-blocking or asynchronous I/O in Node.js?
In the context of Server Side Javascript engines, what is non-blocking I/O or asynchronous I/O? I see this being mentioned as an advantage over Java server side implementations. Joseph Synchronous vs Asynchronous Synchronous execution usually refers to code executing in sequence. Asynchronous execution refers to execution that doesn't run in the sequence it appears in the code. In the following example, the synchronous operation causes the alerts to fire in sequence. In the async operation, while alert(2) appears to execute second, it doesn't. Synchronous: 1,2,3 alert(1); alert(2); alert(3);