Connection Timeout
A connection timeout is a network concept that defines the maximum duration a client will wait for a successful connection to a server or service before aborting the attempt. It prevents indefinite waiting when a server is unresponsive, unreachable, or overloaded, ensuring applications can handle failures gracefully. This mechanism is crucial in distributed systems, web applications, and APIs to maintain reliability and user experience.
Developers should learn about connection timeouts to build resilient applications that can handle network failures without hanging or crashing. They are essential in scenarios like web scraping, API integrations, database connections, and microservices communication, where network latency or server issues might occur. Proper timeout configuration helps in implementing retry logic, fallback mechanisms, and error handling to improve system stability.