• A protocol is the "language" of the network. A method by which two dissimilar systems can communicate.
• While protocols are often very precisely specified, their intended audience is a human reader or developer, not a compiler or automated verification tool.
• Automated verification tools, however, usually extract a high overhead cost from developers.
• Notice that the concepts of protocol objects, adapting protocols, and open protocols are themselves ``protocols''. The protocols package supplies three interface objects that symbolize these concepts: IProtocol, IAdaptingProtocol, and IOpenProtocol, respectively. Just as the English phrases represent the concepts in this text, the interface objects represent these concepts at runtime.
• Whether a protocol object is as simple as a string, or as complex as an IOpenProtocol, it can be used to request that a component provide (or be adaptable to) the protocol that it symbolizes. In the next section, we'll look at how to make such a request, and how the different kinds of protocol objects participate (or not) in fulfilling such requests.
• Some examples of these different protocols include PPP, TCP/IP, SLIP, HTTP, and FTP.
• TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a protocol which runs over a network.

NOTE: FIND SOME RESOURCES OF THE PICTURES AND INFORMATION ABOUT THE DIFFERENT PROTOCOLS EXAMPLES.

• When human beings communicate with each other, we have a set of rules that we use.
• Although we do not think about them when we are holding a conversation, they still exist.
• For insatnce, we wait until the other person has finished talking before we say something and usually acknowledge that we have understood what has been said by nodding occasionally.
• In other words there is a protocol between the individuals.
• We also have protocols in telecommunications.
• Protocols ensure that each computer behaves predictably and provides information in an understandable way.