CS3700-project3/README.md

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## High level approach

For this assignment we developed a new protocol that would be particularly efficient at
transferring a file over an unreliable connection. The protocol divides the input file
into fixed-length "segments", numbers them sequentially, and attempts to transfer them to
the receiver. It repeatedly retransmits segments that it is not confident that the
receiver has obtained. The receiver periodically sends batched-acknowledgements that
list received segments. The segments are compressed using state-of-the-art compression
algorithms to ensure expedient delivery. The rate of sending and acknowledgement is
continuously tuned to optimize for network conditions using coding and algorithms.

## Challenges

We faced many challenges implementing this protocol, such as the following:

- Learning how to use cutting-edge event-loop libraries in Rust
- Selecting a re-transmission algorithms that would be resistant to drops and duplicates
- Choosing constants that would tune the transmission rate to adjust automatically to
  network latency and bandwidth
- Ensuring that *both* connections would close once the file had been successfully
  transferred.

## Testing

Various internal algorithms and data structures were tested using simple unit tests.  For
instance, we have unit tests to check that our packet encoding/decoding schemes work
correctly.

However, testing general consistency of the protocol was done by running the scripts
provided to us, which automatically adjust network conditions and send large files.