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Why systems should separate user-facing services from background workers

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Every compute component in a system is either a service that answers a waiting user or a worker that performs tasks no one is actively waiting on. For example, a payment submission is handled by a service because the customer needs an immediate response, while receipt emails and revenue syncs are assigned to workers. Misclassifying work in one direction makes users wait on unnecessary tasks, while misclassifying in the other can cause needed results to get lost in a queue. The article's guiding principle is that anything a user is waiting for should not be implemented as a worker. The piece also promotes an associated email course and newsletter from systemthinkinglab.ai.

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