Alright, the event loop the heartbeat of asyncio applications in Python. It’s like a DJ at a party, but instead of spinning records, it spins threads. And instead of making people dance, it makes your code run faster and more efficiently.

So what is an event loop? Well, let me put it this way: imagine you have a bunch of tasks that need to be done in parallel, but they can’t all happen at the same time because there’s only one CPU core available. That’s where the event loop comes in it manages these tasks and makes sure they run in order, without blocking each other or causing any conflicts.

Now, you might be wondering: “But how does an event loop actually work?” Well, let me break it down for you.

First of all, when your asyncio application starts up, the event loop is automatically created and set as the current one for that thread. This means that any functions or coroutines defined with the `async` keyword will be executed by this loop.

Next, the event loop enters a continuous cycle called the “event loop” (duh). During each iteration of this cycle, it checks if there are any pending tasks to execute these could be I/O operations like reading from a file or sending data over a network socket, or they could be coroutines that have been yielded using `yield from` or the `await` keyword.

If there’s nothing to do, the event loop waits for something interesting to happen this is called “waiting” in asyncio lingo. This waiting can take many forms: it could be a timeout (e.g., waiting for 1 second before continuing), or it could be an I/O operation that’s currently blocked on some resource (like reading from a file).

When something interesting does happen, the event loop wakes up and starts processing tasks again. This is called “firing” in asyncio lingo. The first task to fire is the one with the highest priority this could be an I/O operation that’s been waiting for a long time (like reading from a slow network socket), or it could be a coroutine that has been yielded using `yield` or `await`.

Once a task has finished executing, the event loop moves on to the next one in line. This continues until all tasks have been executed and there’s nothing left to do at this point, the event loop exits gracefully and your application shuts down.

Now, how you can create a new event loop using `asyncio.new_event_loop()`. This function creates a brand-spankin’ new event loop object and returns it this can be useful if you have multiple threads running your asyncio application (which is not recommended), or if you want to test different event loops for performance reasons.

Finally, there’s `asyncio.set_event_loop()`, which allows you to set a new current event loop for the current thread. This can be useful in some cases where you have multiple threads running your asyncio application and need to switch between them (which is also not recommended).

So that’s it, the basics of the event loop in asyncio applications. It might seem like a lot at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty simple. And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be spinning threads and making your code run faster than ever before!

But wait there’s more! In our next tutorial, we’re going to dive deeper into asyncio and show you how to use callback handles for even greater control over your event loop. Stay tuned!