This week’s reading introduced us to the idea of protocols – a management style used by computers to complete certain tasks, as well as importantly, define and trigger particular tasks. I find it easier to use the term – computer logic. Suggesting a logical functionality, computer logic is the method of creating equations within a computer system to make connections between certain actions and particular functions, along with a possible succession of functions following, to manage all the information within a system or network. Once thinking of the notion as computer logic is clarified it to me, however this quote also does a pretty good job of simplifying the term.

“To help understand the concept of computer protocols,consider the analogy oft he highway system. Many different combinations of roads are available to a person driving from point A to point B. However, en route one is compelled to stop at red lights, stay between the white lines, follow a reasonably direct path, and so on. These conventional rules that govern the set of possible behavior patterns within a heterogeneous system are what computer scientists call protocol. Thus, protocol is a technique for achieving voluntary regulation within a contingent environment.”