|
Exactly.
Blocking and non-blocking are just logical names to describe the behaviour of the functions. As the name implies, a blocking function blocks the calling function. This means the caller does not do anything until the blocking function returns control to it. You can consider this synchronous behaviour, because the interactions are "synchronized" in that the calling function must wait until the called blocking function is finished before continuing.
Conversely, non-blocking functions, of course, do the opposite: they do not require the caller to wait until they are finished. They simply call the function and immediately carry on to the next instruction to execute. This could be thought of as "asynchronous" interaction.
You could think of a personal, informal in-person conversation with someone as asynchronous. Each person doesn't necessarily wait until the other is finished their sentence. In a professional, formal conversation with your boss, its probably best to communicate synchronously: you do not want to interrupt while your boss is talking. You wait for him/her to finish talking, then you talk. (Aside: though your direction of communication with them is probably synchronous, they may communicate with you asynchronously, interrupting at will).
N.B.: Note that there are technical and programming-specific keywords for "synchronous", etc, so do not misuse these.
Last edited by nadroj; 03-06-2010 at 10:21 PM.
|
