Protocol
A protocol defines the three aspects of a communicable relationship of two or moreentities, whether people or computer programs. The assumption is that the relationship is established in order to do something that the entities participate in. This sounds like a contract - which is exactly what it is.
- Form - how the relationship is framed - what may be communicated and how the content (of the communication) is arranged.
- Content - that which is communicated within the prescribed to the form.
- Behaviour - what the entities are expected to do in response to received, formed content.
Think about the possibilities of protocols. For example, if a kid punches another kid on school property, a discipline protocol is invoked. The people in charge need to understand what happened, to assess responsibility, to address re-occurrance, and to inform various adults who are expected to participate. The form is discussion and enforced participation by an authority figure; the content involves descriptions of what happened and descriptions of rules about is going to happen next; the behaviour involves bringing the kids (perhaps forcibly) somewhere that the incident can be discussed in private, teachers of both kids being on guard to address the kids' emotions and subsequent actions, parents taking the incident seriously and also being on guard afterwards, etc. The purpose of the protocol is to assign culpability, guard against over-reactions by everyone, invoke punishment if necessary, and inhibit future occurances.
Another example: When a computer user, through a web brower, somehow “visits” a web site. This protocol has a name - hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). As a matter of interest, web addresses look like: http://www.timpenner.ca. But shorthands, such as timpenner.ca, work because http is assumed and www is the default predicate. The purpose of the protocol is to allow users to go to web sites. The form is the format of the web site name encoded in messages flying around the internet; the content is the identity of the web site; the behaviour involves the remote computer somehow preparing a page and sending it in messages right back to the requester's computer, where the contents of the page is displayed according to the rules for displaying web pages in 2025. (For those who really know what's going on with http, please don't get excited about this gross simplification.)