in javascript's programming model, literally everything that's running in response to user action (clicks, etc.) absolutely has to complete immediately (from the browser user's point of view), or it will hang the UI. async event handlers really help with that. a non-async handler blocking until a long standing operation is complete (i.e awaiting an async function) is unacceptable

the async/non async functions in javascript are good and well designed. the whole colored functions thing is nonsense and it's weird that it gained so much traction on here