Streams
Streams are a programming abstraction for handling sequences of data elements made available over time, enabling efficient processing of large or continuous data without loading everything into memory at once. They allow data to be processed in chunks as it becomes available, supporting operations like filtering, mapping, and reducing in a declarative manner. This concept is widely implemented in various programming languages and frameworks to manage I/O operations, data pipelines, and real-time data flows.
Developers should learn and use streams when dealing with large datasets, real-time data processing, or I/O-bound operations to improve performance and memory efficiency. For example, streams are essential for reading files line-by-line, processing network requests, handling video/audio data, or building data pipelines in big data applications. They help avoid memory bottlenecks and enable scalable, responsive applications by processing data incrementally.