Reliable TCP vs Fast UDP. 3-Way Handshake, Flow Control, Header Analysis, Nagle's Algorithm, and Python Code examples for Chat Server.
Why does my server crash? OS's desperate struggle to manage limited memory. War against Fragmentation.
Two ways to escape a maze. Spread out wide (BFS) or dig deep (DFS)? Who finds the shortest path?
Fast by name. Partitioning around a Pivot. Why is it the standard library choice despite O(N²) worst case?
Establishing TCP connection is expensive. Reuse it for multiple requests.
To understand TCP and UDP, I read countless articles, wrote code myself, and debugged extensively. At first, I memorized "TCP is reliable, UDP is fast," but now I understand why.
My core takeaway:
Ultimately, network programming is about "understanding trade-offs and making choices." TCP for chat apps, UDP for games, QUIC for web services. Now I can confidently choose the right protocol for each project.
And next, I plan to build my own custom reliability protocol on top of UDP. I want to implement what QUIC did with my own hands. That's the real path to understanding.
