Backpressure explained — the resisted flow of data through software | by Jay Phelps | Medium

Backpressure (or back pressure) is something nearly every software engineer will have to deal with at some point, and for some it’s a frequent problem. But the term itself isn’t nearly as understood and recognized as such. In this post I’m going to elaborate on what exactly backpressure is, when it’s common, and the strategies we can use to mitigate it. I recently gave a talk about this at ReactiveConf: In the software world “backpressure” is an analogy borrowed from fluid dynamics, like in automotive exhaust and house plumbing. The Wikipedia definition: Resistance or force opposing the desired flow of fluid through pipes. In the context of software, the definition could be tweaked to refer to the flow of data within software: Resistance or force opposing the desired flow of data through software. The purpose of software is to take input data and turn it into some desired output data. That output data might be JSON from an API, it might be HTML for a webpage, or the pixels displayed on

Backpressure (or back pressure) is something nearly every software engineer will have to deal with at some point, and for some it’s a frequent problem. But the term itself isn’t nearly as understood and recognized as such. In this post I’m going to elaborate on what exactly backpressure is, when it’s common, and the strategies we can use to mitigate it. I recently gave a talk about this at ReactiveConf: In the software world “backpressure” is an analogy borrowed from fluid dynamics, like in automotive exhaust and house plumbing. The Wikipedia definition: Resistance or force opposing the desire