8.1. Overview
An application protocol facilitates communication between applications, using the services of lower-level Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model layers (for example, network and physical layers). When you check your e-mail, browse a Web site, play games, or download files over the Internet, the software you run is using an application protocol for communication.
For applications to interoperate, the implementation of application protocols must be precise. You can't have one application speaking one way and another application unable to understand or interpret the message—otherwise the many thousands of software applications running on the many millions of computers in existence couldn't get along. This is not to say that every ...
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