protocol: n. As used by hackers, this never refers to niceties
about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal Nuncio or
the order in which one should use the forks in a Russian-style place
setting; hackers don't care about such things. It is used instead
to describe any set of rules that allow different machines or pieces
of software to coordinate with each other without ambiguity. So,
for example, it does include niceties about the proper form for
addressing packets on a network or the order in which one should use
the forks in the Dining Philosophers Problem. It implies that there
is some common message format and an accepted set of primitives or
commands that all parties involved understand, and that transactions
among them follow predictable logical sequences. See also
handshaking, do protocol.
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