Route 2: Mobl, a compiles-to-Javascript language.
Route 3: Stratified.js, a compiles-to-Javascript language.
And then a side-mention for something actually in Javascript: https://github.com/caolan/async
So, to make spaghetti-free Javascript... don't write Javascript? I'll keep looking, thanks.
I wasn't aware of any of the three javascript packages (are they libraries? frameworks? seems like they're not really), and anyone looking to improve their asynchronous javascript writing skills and readability should take a look. The author admits that debugging could be an issue since these packages all generate new javascript from your current code, but the concepts look very promising.
I agree wholeheartedly, by the way. There's way too much scope for leaky abstractions when you try to hide away the true nature of asynchronous code.
Same reason, I think, why most people are lukewarm about using continuations in web development, like e.g. Seaside does: in principle, very neat, very clean, but it hides away a fundamental aspect of how the web works, which can lead to all sorts of unforeseen behavior re. caching, debugging et cetera.
Done properly, that's not terribly true. Done properly, correct code transformers can actually bring you a lot of power, such as handling exceptions correctly across asynchronous boundaries or enabling much more powerful control flows, such as being able to freely pass in callbacks that themselves may have asynchronous functionality, layered arbitrarily deeply. The only thing that can "leak" is exactly where the asynchronous breaks occur, but it's not that hard to see that.
It's quite debatable that "the true nature" of asynchronous code is in the manually-scheduled hacked up code that you write by hand in Node.js or similar tools. Other environments that don't require that make a good case for saying that the "true nature" of asynchronous code looks like the synchronous code, only with capable scheduling, and the real "leaky abstraction" is the way your terrible, terrible language runtime scheduler is poking out and requiring you to manually transform your relatively simple code into a spaghetti mess to satisfy it. There's your leaky abstraction, and what leaks out is daggers slicing your code to ribbons.
It depends on generators, so it works only in Firefox, but it's a cool hack nonetheless, and might be useful if you're developing Firefox addons.
