Visual Basic® Programmer's Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library

Messaging

To help better understand Message Queuing, consider the following analogy of Instant Messaging (IM) and e-mail. Although each technology is very similar (bits from one user to another across a wire), each tool's actual use is quite different. IM is more conversational—a short burst followed by a reply, and so on. The communication is synchronous, real-time, and usually light. We use e-mail for our more important communications. E-mail guarantees delivery or sends an undeliverable message, notifies us of delivery (read receipt), stores a record of the message, can secure a message, and continues to communicate when the other user is “down.” As users, we understand the ramifications and instinctively choose the appropriate tool for the ...