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Reactive programming is just what it sounds like — writing programs that react to events. A growing number of developers are experimenting with the technique. In an interview with InfoWorld, Typesafe Senior Software Engineer Josh Suereth explains why:
“It’s a concept that really has been around for a long time, but it’s now becoming viable for Java. The basics of it is essentially instead of writing code that you say, ‘Do this, do this, do this, do this,’ you say, ‘After this event, do something. After that is complete, do something.’ So it’s about reacting when something is done. The main reason this matters is because as we go multicore, if you program in this style, there are new techniques to optimize across CPUs.”
He adds, “It’s really for any development, but I think it really shines when you’re doing Web [application] development.”
