Glossary of Technical Terms

Mono

Mono is a reactive programming type representing a single or empty asynchronous computation. It's a part of the Reactor library in Spring WebFlux and is used to handle zero or one result.

Flux

Flux is another reactive type from the Reactor library that represents a sequence of asynchronous events. Unlike Mono, Flux can emit zero, one, or many elements.

Non-Blocking Operations

Non-blocking operations allow a thread to continue executing other tasks while waiting for an operation to complete. In the context of Spring MVC, non-blocking I/O enables the server to handle more requests concurrently without being tied up by slow operations.

Operators

Operators are functions that allow you to manipulate, filter, combine, and transform data streams in reactive programming. They are essential for creating complex data processing pipelines.

Reactive Programming

Reactive programming is a programming paradigm focused on handling asynchronous data streams and the propagation of change. It is particularly useful for applications requiring high performance and scalability.

Spring WebFlux

Spring WebFlux is a part of the Spring Framework that supports reactive programming. It provides tools and libraries for building reactive web applications and RESTful services.

Backpressure

Backpressure is a mechanism for handling situations where a data producer is emitting items more quickly than a consumer can process them. It helps to prevent resource exhaustion and ensure system stability.

Publisher

A Publisher is a component in reactive programming that produces a stream of data. It can emit zero or more items and potentially an error or completion signal.

Subscriber

A Subscriber is a component that consumes data from a Publisher. It receives and processes the data items, handling any errors or completion signals.

Subscription

A Subscription represents the link between a Publisher and a Subscriber. It allows the Subscriber to request data and cancel the subscription if needed.

Scheduler

A Scheduler is a component that controls the execution of tasks in reactive programming. It can manage threading and concurrency, ensuring that tasks run in the appropriate context.

Stream

A Stream in reactive programming is a sequence of data elements made available over time. Streams can be finite or infinite and are processed using various operators.