How many times have you written code like this in Java/TypeScript?

function saveData() {
  const self = this;
  $.post("/api/foo", function (response) {
    self.updated(true);
  }
}

The self variable is used to keep a reference to the real calling object so that, when the callback is executed, it can actually call back to the parent (if you used this, then its value would change as the callback executes).

Enter async! Suddenly, you can write:

function saveData() {
  await $.post("/api/foo");
  this.updated(true);
}

That’s an awful lot of lines that you’ve just saved across your codebase!