Reactive programming (RP) is based on data flows and the propagation of change, with the underlying execution model of a programming language automatically propagating changes through the data flow. With the popularity of event-driven, scalable, and interactive architectures both on the server and the client, the concept of “reactiveness” is increasingly gaining attention.
InfoQ has already been covering this paradigm for a couple of years, and a few weeks ago the Gartner research firm included both “Reactive Programming” and “Event-Driven Web” in their “Hype Cycle for Application Development, 2013” publication (“On the Rise” section).
Around a month ago Bruce Eckel, author of numerous books on programming, and Jonas Boner, creator of Akka and CTO of Typesafe, published the “The Reactive Manifesto” which tries to define what reactive applications are.
