Any web application that reaches some critical mass eventually discovers that separation of services, where possible, is a great strategy for scaling the service. In fact, oftentimes a user action can be offloaded into a background task, which can be handled asynchronously while the user continues to explore the site. However, coordinating this workflow does require some infrastructure: a message queue, or a work queue. The distinction between the two is subtle and blurry, but it does carry important…
(via Instapaper)
