TCP vs UDP: When to Use What, and How TCP Relates to HTTP

While using tech in our regular life, we often don't even think about it. Or maybe we even underestimate the amount of engineering and hardship being involved to implement them. These can be as simple as having a call over internet, playing online games, watching live matches, browsing through web. For many of us, it could be a very simple act of visiting the website, clicking on the app and start to use feature. But we often don't even think about what goes behind and how the thing works.

Let's learn about TCP and UDP which as a programmer all of us has heard once in a while but may not have studied it beyond textbook.

Internet Protocols

Before we jump into TCP and UDP, we need to first understand what are Internet protocol and it's importance. Protocols are nothing but set of rules one has to follow. Internet protocols are the set of rules for accessing and working with Internet. Imagine millions of devices communicating at the same time without any context on how and when to send or receive data. Messages would overlap, disappear, or arrive half-broken.