1. A real-time protocol executable on a computer network having a plurality of nodes, wherein the nodes include real-time middleware capable of executing real-time operations, the middleware of each node further including: a write object associated with a variable; a read object associated with a variable; a message interpreter that receives and interprets the variable change messages so that they can be read by a read object; a variable reference table which a write object uses to track variable information; a remote reader reference table for each reader that has registered to receive information from the writer so that the writer can determine a message status for each reader registered to receive information from the writer, wherein a variable is a data object that includes a plurality of parameters and a plurality of associated parameter values, a variable includes parameters for a globally unique identifier and, implicitly or explicitly, a type and a topic; and the write object is capable of writing variable change messages having a topic to associated read objects that are registered to receive variable change messages having the topic, without the read communication objects otherwise requesting the change information.