This document provides an overview of socket programming. It discusses what sockets are, which are endpoints for communication between an application and the TCP/IP protocol stack. Sockets are represented by file descriptors that allow applications to read and write data to the network. It then covers protocols like TCP and UDP, the client-server programming paradigm, and the common socket API. TCP provides reliable, in-order connections, while UDP is unreliable but supports broadcasting. Sample code demonstrates how sockets are created and used in both TCP and UDP client-server applications.