Multiplexing Glossary
Canonical terms for this course. Definitions stay short and match lesson language.
Terms
- Multiplexing
- Combining many logical channels onto one shared connection by sending labeled pieces. Avoid: “merging everything into one blob.”
- Demultiplexing
- Sorting mixed pieces from one shared connection back into their original logical channels. Avoid: “decrypting” or “unpacking” unless those also happen separately.
- Logical channel
- One conversation or stream inside a shared connection, such as chat, file, or video.
- Frame
- A small labeled piece of data from a logical channel. A frame usually carries a channel label and may carry sequence information.
- Channel label
- Identifier that tells the receiver which logical channel a frame belongs to.
- Head-of-line blocking
- A delay where work at the front of a shared path makes later work wait, even when later work is small or urgent.
- Scheduling
- Choosing which logical channel gets to send the next frame on a shared connection.
- Round-robin
- A simple scheduling rule where each non-empty logical channel gets a turn before any channel repeats.
- Quantum
- The maximum number of frames a logical channel can send during one scheduler turn.
- Port
- A transport-layer number used by the operating system to route incoming network data to a listening app.
- Socket
- An endpoint label, usually combining protocol, local IP address, and local port, that an app uses to send or receive network data.
- Listener
- An app or process that has asked the operating system to receive traffic for a specific socket.
- I/O multiplexing
- A way for one thread to wait for readiness across many I/O sources, then handle whichever source is ready.
- Blocking I/O
- An operation that makes a thread wait until one specific I/O source is ready or complete.
- Readiness
- A signal that an I/O source can be read from or written to without the thread blindly waiting on that one source.
- Event loop
- A loop that waits for readiness or scheduled work, then runs the matching handler.
- Task queue
- A queue of normal callbacks waiting to run on the event loop.
- Microtask queue
- A higher-priority queue for promise reactions and similar work that runs before the next normal task.
- HTTP/2 stream
- A logical HTTP conversation identified by a stream ID inside one HTTP/2 connection.
- Jitter
- Uneven packet arrival timing that can make real-time media glitch unless buffered.
- Jitter buffer
- A short delay buffer that plays media packets by timestamp instead of raw arrival order.
- Backpressure
- A signal or limit that prevents fast senders from overwhelming slower receivers.