VLSI Questions for Reactive Programming

Reactive programming has hardware-shaped problems once values are no longer single events. Multi-bit values need completeness rules: when is the value ready, what counts as a coherent update, and how do comparators behave while the pieces are still arriving?

VLSI makes those questions concrete. Pipelines, propagation delay, clock trees, latches, D flip-flops, and fanout all exist because timing and state cannot be wished away.

The software version has the same pressure at a higher level. Reactive graphs can oscillate, observe half-updated state, or create cycles whose timing depends on scheduling details. A runtime has to decide where state is stored, when updates commit, and how feedback is bounded.

The useful bridge is to treat reactive software as a timed system, not only as dependency notation. Circuit designers already live with those constraints.