Buffer
A small holding area that smooths the flow of data between parts moving at different speeds.
Glossary
Queue
An orderly line of pending requests, handled in turn.
In one line
An orderly line of pending requests, handled in turn.
Also calledwaiting line
A queue keeps work in order. Requests join the back of the line and are dealt with from the front, so nothing is lost and nothing jumps ahead unfairly. This simple discipline brings fairness and predictability to a system that might otherwise be chaotic.
Drivers maintain queues so that a burst of requests can be accepted gracefully and worked through steadily, rather than overwhelming a component all at once. The queue lets the system say yes to many requests immediately while still serving them one at a time.
Order matters because it makes behaviour easy to reason about. When work is handled in the sequence it arrived, results come back in a sensible order and no single request is left waiting forever while newer ones slip past it.
Queues also reveal when a system is under strain. A line that keeps growing is a sign that work is arriving faster than it can be finished, which is a clear and early signal that something needs attention before it becomes a real problem.
In practice
In practice, a queue is like the line at a counter. You take your place, others line up behind you, and you are served in the order you arrived. No one is forgotten and no one fairly cuts ahead. A driver keeps its requests in just such an orderly line.
