All proper programming languages I can think of have a real simple function – sleep(). It suspends the execution of your program for a time. This is what I wanted to do. Having no choice but to use javascript in this case, I went around looking for what the sleep() function is called in this dreadful language.

Turns out there is none. There is only setTimeout() and setInterval(). Either will call a function after a time, but in between your code will continue to execute.

All I could find on the internet is a bunch of solutions to this problem involving an infinite loop. That, for I hope obvious reasons, was not acceptable for me.

I considered using `yield` but that doesn’t work for some reason in my version of the current firefox trunk. I did the javascript version thing, but then none of the javascript I had (yield or not) would work at all.

So I grumbled for a couple of hours and finally figured out a solution so my stuff still works as I want it, and all that’s lost is readability. I’ll share this beast with you all in case you ever run into the same problem.

This is what I wanted done in the first place, overly simplfied (lack of whitespace courtesy of wordpress):

function wish(i, j)
{
var k = i + j;

for(var m = 0; m < 10; m++)
{
// start doing something outside of my control

sleep(5000); // sleep for 5 seconds

// check the results of the something

alert(k + “, ” + m + results);
}
}

Like I said, it’s overly simplified. There’s no need to bring 3D and benchmarks into this example.

Since setInterval() is all I have to work with, that’s what I’ll use. The tricks to address my concerns are:

1. Make a global function that will take the (i, j) parameters and have it call another function (real()) that doesn’t take any parameters
2. Copy the parameters to wish() into glabal variables
3. Where the sleep() would be have a setInterval(‘real()’, 5000) instead
4. Copy all the local variables in real() to global variables before the setInterval()
5. Add a condition so real() will know whether it should continue from where it left off or start from the beginning.

A lot of work, but the other option is to not do it at all.. Here’s what it now looks like:

var gI;
var gJ;

function wish(i, j)
{
gI = i;
gJ = j;
real();
}

var gK;
var gM = 0;
var didSleep = false;

function real()
{
if (didSleep)
{
// check the results of the something
alert(gK + “, ” + (gM – 1) + results);
}
else
{
gK = gI + gJ;
}

for(m = gM; m < 10; m++)
{
// start doing something outside of my control

gK = k;
gM = m + 1;
didSleep = true;
setInterval(“real()”, 5000);
return;
}
}

That’s pretty disgusting. I’d blame the people who came up with javascript if it wasn’t for the fact that javascript was never designed to be a proper language. Javascript was made for people one level above HTML, which is far, far from real programming and it served those people well.

Instead I blame the people responsible for the javascript hype. Both the fanboys who don’t know any better but their strength is in numbers; and the programmers who sell their time/ideas by proclaiming that AJAX is the only way to go. I even blame google a little for making the two useful javascript applications in the world.

I’ll say it again – disgusting.