What is the role of message queues and pub/sub systems in backend development?
Message queues and pub/sub systems play a crucial role in backend development by enabling reliable and scalable communication between different components of a system. A message queue allows asynchronous communication and decouples the sender and receiver, ensuring that messages are not lost during high traffic or when systems go offline. On the other hand, a publish/subscribe (pub/sub) system allows multiple recipients to receive messages published by a sender. This pattern is ideal for real-time updates and event-driven architectures. Both message queues and pub/sub systems enhance the flexibility, performance, and fault tolerance of backend systems, making them integral to modern software development.