Submitted 1 week ago by LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc to [deleted]
IP is also protocol and activity pub is also protocol, right ??
A protocol is a shared set of expectations that allow two or more things to communicate. It says “I will announce myself in this way” and “these are the responses you should expect to this request” and “here’s the list of all the things I know how to do”, and if we both follow the protocol, then we both understand what’s going to happen when we communicate.
A protocol is just the rules to do something. Doesn’t matter of it’s a human language, a machine language, cleaning a room, driving a car, …
C3PO is a protocol droid, and can “speak” many languages.
Computers use protocols like a language to understand each other when they connect
Yeah but I have no use for him if he can’t understand the binary language of moisture vaporators
It’s the rules for how we interact. Like shake hands and introduce yourself. Many protocols literally have “handshake” stages.
I also like as an example the rule of not facing your back to the king/queen.
The is the original meaning of the word.
Protocols help computers know how to behave together. It’s like how you know that you make your voice go up to ask a question, so that I know I’m supposed to answer you.
How about a computer and a mobile phone ?
A (modern) mobile phone is very similar to a computer, the main difference is the shape and what software it runs by default
A mobile phone is a kind of computer.
They’re the same with different connections
Basic manners and politeness is a loose protocol of sorts. The following is a basic exchange between two people using please to request something, a response, followed by thank you and you’re welcome to wrap up the exchange.
Can I please have X?
Yes you may.
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
I guess I would explain it as an agreed upon way of talking to each other, say you decide you want to text, or call, or send a card. A protocol is like that. It’s not the data just the transmission method. A protocol controls the data stream, the hand shaking (when it is OK to start sending data, which port, where to send it). A data packet sent using a protocol is like a letter, with a sender, intended receiver, stamp (signature, key, CRC, etc.).
Start with non-computer protocols. What’s the protocol at a restaurant?
Patron: Open the door and enter. Wait 1.
If host currently busy Restaurant (Host): please wait. I will be right with you.
If host currently not present Restaurant (anyone): please wait, the host will be right with you.
If wait 1 times out Patron: excuse me, we’d like a table.
If host available and not busy Restaurant (Host): Hello and welcome. Wait 2
if wait 2 times out Restaurant (Host): how many are in your party?
Patron: Hello. We would like a table <state number of guests>.
Or think about parliamentary procedure for bringing a motion to vote and voting on it.
These are protocols. They are all around us.
Computer networking protocols are so named because they are analogous. They define how to exchange information to accomplish a specific task. For IP, it’s a protocol for routing information packets across an unknown number of computers to a destination computer. For TCP, it’s a protocol for how a computer should send information packets and how a computer who is receiving those packets should acknowledge them.
Hold out your hand to see if they shake it. That’s protocol.
Rules
Computers are really dumb, so when one computer wants to talk to another computer, they need an established set of rules about how each message will be sent and what to do with it when it gets received.
For IP, it’s mostly about how data is packaged and shipped. It has rules about how much data can be sent in a single message, some information about where the message is going and where it came from, whether or not they expect a reply, and then finally the block of data itself.
However, inside that block of data, there will be some more information about what that data is, so that the receiving computer knows what to do with it. This is where applications like activitypub do their work.
Mostly right but it has little to do with computers being “dumb”. It has more to do with predictability.
Protocols are simply the standards used in he communications, much like people have standards for post mail, shipping, etc: where to write the address, what ZIP codes mean, how to mark packages en route, etc. It’s not that people are “dumb” but it’s just far more efficient to have most packages marked in same “language”.
Sure, computers are “dumb” (and also universal) but that’s why programming languages exist, protocols are not quite as good example of that.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
For a five year old I’d keep it super simple and personally relatable and say it’s like a language that two people speak. Except it’s a computer language that websites speak (I often say websites instead of servers even when speaking to adults).
So like Facebook and Gmail can’t talk to eachother, but Gmail and Hotmail can. (You can probably come up with better examples.)
netvor@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Great way to explain it at any age.
It’s just language that computers use to talk to other computers.
LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 week ago
Consider this : Jabber and gmail/Hotmail do not speak the same language ?