title: Network Communication Design Patterns
body: <p>I've come to realize that several questions I asked in the past, such as <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/622735/how-have-you-structured-your-network-oriented-apps">this</a> really boil down to a more fundamental question.</p>
  
  <p>Are there any well known design patterns for network communications and by virtue of it's nature, protocol construction/parsing?  A google search has not revealed much.</p>
  
  <p>Note that i'm not looking for solutions for any given problem, i'm looking for documented design patterns dealing with network communications and their protocols.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:</p>
  
  <p>Please, don't suggest various implementation details or discuss specific protocols unless it's tied to a design pattern.  Protocol design is not the issue, it's the design patterns for creating or parsing protocols that i'm looking for, not to mention the communication patterns themselves.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT2:</p>
  
  <p>I find it hard to believe that nobody has come up with any common patterns for network communication.  Yes, I know "it depends", but you can say that about any project, yet there are lots of patterns that cover general ideas.  </p>