[Hampshire] TCP socket programming.

Hi,

I have not done socket programming in a long time, so I was hoping
someone from this list could help.

Imagine a TCP session receiving data. This data is placed in a socket
buffer until the application reads from the socket.
a) Can the socket buffer be set to a fixed size?
b) If the socket buffer gets full, will TCP backoff until the
application has read from the buffer?

My gut feeling is that TCP would have to back off, otherwise data
would be lost, and in real life internet surfing, data is not getting
lost, even if the application is a bit slow to respond.

Can someone point me to a document, or RFC possibly, that would
explain clearly how things actually work.

James