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Certain data-communication protocols hog the spotlight, but all of them have a lot in common. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet explains the engineering problems that are inherent in communicating digital information from point to point. The top-down approach mentioned in the subtitle means that the book starts at the top of the protocol stack--at the application layer--and works its way down through the other layers, until it reaches bare wire. The authors, for the most part, shun the well-known seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol stack in favor of their own five-layer (application, transport, network, link, and physical) model. It's an effective approach that helps clear away some of the hand waving traditionally associated with the more obtuse layers in the OSI model. The approach is definitely theoretical--don't look here for instructions on configuring Windows 2000 or a Cisco router--but it's relevant to reality, and should help anyone who needs to understand networking as a programmer, system architect, or even administration guru. The treatment of the network layer, at which routing takes place, is typical of the overall style. In discussing routing, authors James Kurose and Keith Ross explain (by way of lots of clear, definition-packed text) what routing protocols need to do: find the best route to a destination. Then they present the mathematics that determine the best path, show some code that implements those algorithms, and illustrate the logic by using excellent conceptual diagrams. Real-life implementations of the algorithms--including Internet Protocol (both IPv4 and IPv6) and several popular IP routing protocols--help you to make the transition from pure theory to networking technologies. --David Wall Topics covered: The theory behind data networks, with thorough discussion of the problems that are posed at each level (the application layer gets plenty of attention). For each layer, there's academic coverage of networking problems and solutions, followed by discussion of real technologies. Special sections deal with network security and transmission of digital multimedia.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Rex Thrown
reviewed Computer networking on July 18, 2020
Computer networking
This was such a boring book. So much so that I would discourage anyone from picking ip up (or studying Computer Networking for that matter). First let me point out the characteristics that I liked most, so that I won't come across as a nuisance, and that prevented me from giving a lower rating
- At anyone's reach
- Very comprehensive prose, as far as the topics that the authors chose to cover are concerned (indeed, I felt much was left over)
Now comes my critique: this book feels aimed at a five-year old audience! Paragraphs feel like a watered-down, wordy mass of text -- this gives clarity, but is boring as hell to read! I expected (if not demanded from a Computer Science course) more formalism, technical sophistication than what I got from two authors afraid of overwhelming their audience. Computer networking basics are covered satisfactorily, but the watered-down, romanticized prose prevented the text from achieving a thicker conceptual density; a book style more appropriate for students with an interest in industry-related applications than on insight and true understanding. I once had a talk with a networking tutor at my university, and he told me part of his work dealt with Markov's chains and probabilistic modeling; I read many of the end-of-chapter interviews, and the interviewees often remarked a conceptually richer footing for computer networking that this book expressed. Why wasn't any of all this covered in this text?
Where did the cool stuff go? OK, I got a good grasp on the ISO/OSI stack -- up from HTTP, e-mail systems, P2P networks down to TCP congestion and flow control mechanisms, link-layer devices and LANs and basic network security notions (that was probably the part I liked most) but in the end I felt I was only acquiring passive knowledge with no reasoning involved. Is that a problem with this particular book? With computer networking? Worse yet, for computer science courses in general?
Additional flaws
- Ridiculously over-priced hard-cover copy (I borrowed one from the library)
- No solutions for end-of-chapter exercises (not even wireshark)
- Questionably ugly top-down approach. Makes one feel like applications deserve more attention than theoretical understanding
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