Authoring Non-Blocking Web Services in PHP
April 14th, 2011Asynchronous Message Exchange Patterns
Asynchronous MEP’s bring many concepts from asynchronous OS development to the Internet. One aspect that’s interesting is the perceived speed up clients feel from asynchronous operations. This where the terminology non-blocking comes from, the idea being the client says, “contact me when its finished” as it submits a request. It’s like dropping clothes off at the cleaners; the request is going to take a few days to complete. The service provider says ‘no problem’ and the client is off to focus on other things while the long running request is handled by the provider.