In plain javascript it's not a problem. Types are ducked so if you receive a result or a promise it doesn't matter. You can functionally work around the "color problem" using this dynamism.
It's only when you do something wacky like try to add a whole type system to a fully duck typed language that you run into problems with this. Or if you make the mistake of copying this async/await mechanism and then hamfistedly shove it into a compiled language.
Typescript has no problem with typing your scenario (or at least nothing that isn’t present in “plain” JavaScript… what if your value is a promise?)
And compiled languages don’t have more trouble with this than JavaScript. Or rather, Javascript doesn’t have less issues on this front. The color issue is an issue at the syntactic level!
Except you can await on non-Promise objects which just returns the original object. Most other typed languages do not appear have this convenience. C# (the apparent source of the color rant) does not. It sets JavaScript apart.
Likewise Promise.resolve() on a promise object just returns the original promise. You can color and uncolor things with far less effort or knowledge of the actual type.
Awaiting a non-promise doesn’t make it synchronous, though — it still executes any subsequent lines in a microtask.
Try running this code. It’ll print “bar” first and then “foo”, even though the function only awaits a string literal and the caller doesn’t await anything at all.
In C# nothing stops you from doing `var t = Task.Run(() => ExpensiveButSynchronous());` and then `await`ing it later. Not that uncommon for firing off known long operations to have some other threadpool thread deal with it.
Unless you literally mean awaiting non-awaitable type which...just doesn't make sense in any statically typed language?
It's only when you do something wacky like try to add a whole type system to a fully duck typed language that you run into problems with this. Or if you make the mistake of copying this async/await mechanism and then hamfistedly shove it into a compiled language.