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}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {do protocol}{handshaking}]