Sequential Programming - Program Entities Interoperability

[mpostol]

I want to open a discussion on the definition of the following terms. Any feedback is welcome.

Synchronous:
It is a programming pattern to describe an interaction between a programming entity and a method called by it where the method is executed synchronously. In other words, the further execution of the calling entity is postponed until the called one has been finished. The concurrent programming concept deliberately is not applicable to implement this relationship.

Asynchronous:
It is a programming pattern to describe an interaction between a programming entity and an action called by it. The called action is executed simultaneously. In other words, the further execution of the calling entity is continued and synchronized with the called one after finishing. It requires concurrent programming.

• Task-based Asynchronous Pattern (TAP)
• Asynchronous Programming Model Pattern (APM)

Interactive:
It is a programming pattern to describe an interaction between programming entities where the selected one triggers an action and expects a reaction from another interoperable party. If the triggered action is non-blocking the interaction is called asynchronous, otherwise, it is called synchronous.

Reactive:
It is a programming pattern to describe an interaction between programming entities where the selected one triggers an action and does not expects a reaction from it. The triggered action must be non-blocking, which means that the interoperability action should last as short as possible. It is a one-to-many programming entity interoperability relationship. This programming pattern may be used to implement the publisher-subscriber pattern.