Information Technology IT – 21 Programming for the web | e-Consult

JavaScript Code:

let count = 0; // Initialize a counter variable
let intervalId = setInterval(function() { // Set up an interval to execute the function every 5 seconds
count++; // Increment the counter
document.getElementById("countDisplay").textContent = "Count: " + count; // Update the content of an HTML element with the current count.  Assume an element with id "countDisplay" exists in the HTML.
}, 5000); // The interval is set to 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds)

Potential Drawback of setInterval():

As mentioned earlier, if the function inside setInterval() takes longer than 5 seconds to execute, it can cause delays in the updating of the count and potentially block the browser's main thread. This can lead to a poor user experience.

More Efficient Alternative: requestAnimationFrame()

requestAnimationFrame() is a browser API that allows you to schedule animations and other updates to be performed before the next browser repaint. It's designed to work efficiently with the browser's rendering pipeline and is generally a better choice for tasks that involve updating the UI frequently. For a simple count like this, requestAnimationFrame() would be slightly less suitable as it's primarily for animations, but it would still be more efficient than setInterval() in terms of browser performance.