Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!BU-CS.BU.EDU!bzs From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: review of Comer TCP/IP book Message-ID: <8807100058.AA27851@bu-cs.bu.edu> Date: 10 Jul 88 00:58:57 GMT References: <1507@laidbak.UUCP> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 39 Although I might be a tad unobjective I think people are missing the point (especially when I see people who have already done TCP/IP ports or otherwise dealt with networks in hand to hand combat say the book wasn't of total use to them.) Hang around the hallways of the ACE conference and listen to folks who came because they don't know a TCP from a UDP and have no mental model to begin to understand such things (typically their problem is that they don't know where the software/hardware boundaries are, which is not surprising if you think about it), or deal with students in a systems course (like one I teach here) trying to understand what all the fuss is about and missing the point repeatedly, or do consulting for a firm just getting into networking and try to just "quickly" go over how a network works and why they need these pieces and sophisticated consultants to design it and piece it together (um, why can't we just PLUG ONE IN...like a disk or something...well, I agree, but it ain't so, yet, at least not if you want more than an office or two hooked together.) If you think any of those folks can't benefit greatly from going thru Doug's book (and, conversely, could much benefit from a stack of RFC's plopped in front of them) then I think you're out of touch with his likely customers. And there's plenty in there to fill most "guru's" holes also (I freely admit there's more in there on EGP than I've had the time or patience to educate myself on, hey, we all have limits.) There's two necessary things to education: First, to provide the right questions, second, to provide the answers to those questions. I think Doug's book goes a lot further in providing the first part (the questions, the model to investigate, the motivations) than anything else I've seen thus far on Internetworking, and plenty far enough on part two (the answers) for a person to thereafter find their own way, at least after going thru the book they might think to ASK for an RFC. Beyond that, it's nice to know that it won't be the last book on networking. -Barry Shein, Boston University