Callbacks vs Event handlers

Very simply -> An event handler is a type of callback.

An event handler is a callback to an event the occurred like a mouse click. More specifically, an event handler is the callback method that is passed into a event listener. When the listener is triggered, it fires its callback, or in this case, the event handler.

Callbacks methods do not need to be associated with events. In fact, generally speaking, when someone uses the term callback, they are referring to a function that gets passed as a parameter into a method which is fired when the method completes.

I hope this clarifies the difference. Good luck!

EDIT:

Types of callbacks

I use callback when using the async library a lot. It's really popular, and very powerful when it comes to asynchronous work. I use it a lot when doing Node.js work. You can find it here: https://github.com/caolan/async

In the example below, you are calling the "callback" method when you have completed the try statement, or calling it with the error when it has failed. In this example, it helps signify when processing, if you will, has been completed on this particular item in the object or array.

You are also passing in a method 'crazyMonkey' at the very end that is a callback function and will get fired when async.forEachOf is complete.

Here is an example:

var obj = {dev: "/dev.json", test: "/test.json", prod: "/prod.json"};
var configs = {};

async.forEachOf(obj, function (value, key, callback) {
  fs.readFile(__dirname + value, "utf8", function (err, data) {
    if (err) return callback(err);
    try {
      configs[key] = JSON.parse(data);
    } catch (e) {
      return callback(e);
    }
    callback();
  })
}, crazyMonkey)

function crazyMonkey(err) {
  if (err) console.error(err.message);
  // configs is now a map of JSON data
  doSomethingWith(configs);
}