Master the modern syntax for writing clear and maintainable asynchronous code.
`async/await` is the current standard for working with promises in JavaScript, offering the highest level of readability and maintainability. Let's revisit its core mechanics. An `async` function is a function that is guaranteed to return a promise. If you explicitly return a value from an `async` function, that value will be wrapped in a resolved promise. If you throw an error, it will return a rejected promise. The `await` keyword can only be used inside an `async` function, and it's placed before a promise. It effectively 'unwraps' the promise, pausing the function's execution until the promise settles. If the promise resolves, `await` returns the resolved value. If it rejects, `await` throws the rejected reason as an error. This allows you to assign the result of an asynchronous operation directly to a variable, just like synchronous code. The synchronous-style error handling with `try...catch` is a major advantage. It allows you to use a single block to handle errors from multiple awaited promises, including standard synchronous errors, leading to unified and predictable error handling logic. While `async/await` is syntactic sugar over promises, this improved syntax makes complex asynchronous workflows, like sequential API calls or conditional async logic, drastically simpler to write and understand.