Message
Encyclopedia : M : ME : MES : Message
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Communication
Instruction
Pattern
Meaning
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More precisely, in the communications science, a message is information which is sent from a source to a receiver. Some common definitions include:
- Any thought or idea expressed briefly in a plain or secret language, prepared in a form suitable for transmission by any means of communication.
- An arbitrary amount of information whose beginning and end are defined or implied.
- Record information, a stream of data expressed in plain or encrypted language (notation) and prepared in a format specified for intended transmission by a telecommunications system.
In
- In the specific Actor model a message is similarly an Actor itself that is sent asynchronously from one Actor to another.
- In languages such as Smalltalk-80 and Objective-C an instance of a class method is called (confusingly) a message.
See also: Instant messaging, Message Oriented Middleware
History of messaging
- Smoke signals - Ancient (short distance only)
- Wind-power shipping (hence the name) "In 1800, it took 2 years to send a message from London to Calcutta. You wrote a physical letter and entrusted it to a wind-powered ship that sailed down the western coasts of Europe and Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, back up the eastern coast of Africa, across the Arabian Sea, etc. -- with, presumably, stops in just about every port (yes, they had multi-hop message transports back then)." [link]
- Semaphore - Limited use
- Telegraph - (late 19th century)
- Telephone - (late 19th century-early 20th century)
- Steamshipping "By 1914, it took 1 month to send a message from London to Calcutta. The Suez Canal had opened, and steamships powered their way through the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, and thence to India. Big improvement."[1]
- Radio, (early 20th century)
- Television - (mid 20th century)
- Airmail (1950s or 1960s?) ~ 1 week.
- Overnight mail - became popular and affordable in the 1980s, made the international messaging only two days.
- Text messaging - (1990s) Messages sent through cellular phones.
- Electronic mail (~1994) - delivery times of 10 minutes, based on number of hops, frequency of manual retrieval, etc.
- Instant messaging - Message travels at average 100 milliseconds, almost always less than a second. Often shorted to "IM", sometimes in combination with the type of messenger (YIM is yahoo instant messenger). People enjoy messaging others through many types of mail including: regular mail, e-mail, online messaging services
References
- "Brief history" section adapted from Peter Saint-Andre ["The Need For Speed"]
- Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms
- Federal Standard 1037C
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