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Clients and Their Functions

To understand how clients work, think about the ATM analogy. The client, the ATM, asks questions to determine the form of the query (deposit, transfer, and so on). It then arranges those questions into a query the server will understand. Next the client sends the query to the server using the correct protocol. Anyone who has programmed computers knows that computers do not respond to plain English-or Spanish for that matter. Commands must be given to the computer in a specific way. The client works along the same model. The client software knows the language spoken by the server and formats the request in a way that the server will understand.

A mail client does much the same. There is a standard mail protocol over the Internet, but dozens of clients take the information. Though your message may be entered in several ways, each client will put it in the correct format to transmit it over the Internet. So, regardless of which mail client you use, your message is sent over the Internet in the same way as all other Internet messages.

Examples of clients are Eudora for mail, Fetch or CuteFTP for file transfer, and Netscape or Internet Explorer for browsing the World Wide Web. The rich variety of clients and servers is why this technology is so important and useful; it doesn't matter what kind of computer you have or which operating system you run-as long as you can speak the basic Internet protocol, TCP/IP, you can connect to the server.

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