Why I always use setTimeout, and never setInterval

When doing something repeatedly in JavaScript, I always use setTimout and never setInterval, here is why

It's pretty common to need to do something repeatedly on an interval when building something with JavaScript. Conveniently the platform offers setInterval for just such a thing

let intervalId;

function pollSomething() {
    const result = poll('something');
    if (isAGoodResult(result)) {
        clearInterval(intervalId);
        doSomethingWithTheResult(result);
    }
}

intervalId = setInterval(pollSomething, 2000);

but I prefer to use setTimeout

let timeoutId;

function triggerPoll() {
    timeoutId = setTimeout(pollSomething, 2000);
}

function pollSomething() {
    const result = poll('something');
    if (isAGoodResult(result)) {
        doSomethingWithTheResult(result);
    } else {
        triggerPoll();
    }
}

triggerPoll();

Why bother writing a blog post about this? Don't they both accomplish the same thing and isn't my version more code and a little harder to read?

Pessimism can be good

The key difference between the two is the setTimeout version is pessimistic. You need to continually pump the interval yourself, and you only pump it if you know you're in a good spot to kick off another iteration.

The setInterval version assumes nothing will go wrong. What if isAGoodResult throws an exception or otherwise fails in some unexpected way? The interval would just keep trodding along. Sometimes it's possible to get an app so messed up it has numerous zombie intervals running despite all hell having broken loose.

The setTimeout version will stop as soon as something unexpected happens. If isAGoodResult blows up, triggerPoll doesn't get called again. We end up in a bad state, but a more dormant one, which is a better bad place to be.