Can you explain the concept of asynchronous operations and how they differ from synchronous ones?

Asynchronous operations allow a program to perform tasks without blocking the main thread of execution, meaning they do not force waiting for one operation to complete before starting another. Unlike synchronous operations, which are executed sequentially and block execution until a result is obtained, asynchronous operations allow launching tasks and continuing work, processing the result later, for example, through callbacks, promises, or async/await.

In Python, the asyncio module and the keywords async and await are used for asynchronous programming:

import asyncio

async def say_hello():
    print('Hello')
    await asyncio.sleep(1)  # imitation of an asynchronous operation
    print('World')

asyncio.run(say_hello())

Here, asyncio.sleep does not block the thread but allows other tasks to run during the wait.