Add daily email for 2024-07-17

Queuing long-running tasks

source/_daily_emails/2024-07-17.md

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+---
+title: Queuing long-running tasks
+date: 2024-07-17
+permalink: daily/2024/07/17/queuing-long-running-tasks
+tags:
+    - software-development
+    - drupal
+cta: ~
+snippet: |
+    Do you have long-running tasks in your application? Have you tried using queues?
+---
+
+Do you have long-running or performance-heavy tasks in your application?
+
+What about performing complex actions when a user completes a task, such as submitting a form?
+
+What if the action took several seconds or minutes to complete?
+
+The user would assume their submission failed and may either leave or submit the form again and cause duplicate submissions.
+
+Instead, maybe use a queue.
+
+When the user submits the form, all you need to do is create a queue item for that submission and let the form submit as normal.
+
+In the background, the queue items will be processed when they can take more time or memory to perform the tasks and without blocking the user - giving them a better experience.
+
+Drupal supports queues by default, storing queue items in its database.
+
+For an example, see the [Private Message Queue module][0] on Drupal.org.
+
+I wrote it for a client project to use queues when sending private messages to event attendees, which could be hundreds per event.
+
+Without a queue, the request would have taken a long time to complete, or likely timed out.
+
+[0]: https://www.drupal.org/project/private_message_queue