Conversation is usually synchronous. I say something, then wait for you to reply. During that wait it would be rude of me to do something else like play a game on my phone, so I don't.
But postal mail communication is asynchronous. I send you a letter and then go on with my life for a couple days. When you send a reply I rip it open and read it.
Ordinary method calls are synchronous. I call someobject.method() and block until that returns.
If I start another
thread I may get an asynchronous reply. I can go on and do other things while the other thread runs, and it may call my object back some time in the future.
Message queuing is often (but not always) asynchronous. Any kind of multi-threaded program like a Swing UI can get into async territory, too.
Does that help?
[ May 24, 2006: Message edited by: Stan James ]