The application is a server. The user is connecting via TCP/IP, much like Telnet. Continuing the telnet analogy, some commands, like cat, produce all their output at once, while other commands, like find, produce their output a little at a time. Either way, the user doesn't have to press any more keys to get all the output, and I don't mind if they receive it all at once (as if the output of the find command was buffered, and sent in its entirety when the command completed)

Have I clarified things or made it worse?