DEV Community

Discussion on: Explain TCP like I'm five

Collapse
 
tgiddings profile image
Trevor Giddings

separating out being able to figure out where a packet goes (internet layer) from anything about it's contents and purpose (transport layer) allows the infrastructure of the internet to be much simpler. It also means that only the machines communicating with each other need to be concerned with what's being sent and why, and developers can create new transport protocols tailored to their use (though this is usually not a good idea since people end up creating a nock-off tcp).

as an analogy: if the transport layer is the methodology for deciding when and how to chuck packets at each other, the internet layer is the muscles in your arms. They only need to be specialized enough to move the arms. They don't need to be concerned with the manner of packet chucking, nor should they be in case you want to chuck packets differently.