WHY WOULD APPLICATIONS REQUIRE ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATIONS?
[Recently did some wordsmithing (12/1998). Click here to go to the next FAQ in the chain of recent changes] Performance is the most common reason. Applications that perform a series of tasks that must be done sequentially cannot benefit from asynchronous communication. Applications that make only short duration remote operations have little need for asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication can allow an application to perform additional tasks instead of waiting for tasks to complete. Applications that have a number of tasks that can be performed in any order can often benefit from distributed asynchronous communication. This becomes more important for applications that call lengthy remote operations. In order to benefit from asynchronous communication, an application must be able to perform some task after the request is issued but before the response is available. Tasks might include prompting for additional user input, displaying information, or making additional remote
