BKINTTCP.RVW   940506
 
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"Internetworking with TCP/IP", Comer/Stevens
dec@purdue.edu
 
If only my calculus text had been this good.
 
"Internetworking with TCP/IP" is intended as a text for a course in the problem
of communication between networks with dissimilar protocols, with reference to
the use of the TCP/IP protocol suite as a means to overcome the problem.  This
should not prevent those interested in using TCP/IP from looking at it:  the
material is quite complete and detailed.  As both text and reference, it
succeeds admirably.
 
After the first two chapters introduce general "inter"networking concepts and
communications technology, three sections of chapters deal successively with
basic connection services, routing and gateways, and then move into
applications issues.  The chapters are many (twenty-seven) and usually short. 
The same structure is followed for most:  the presentation of a particular
problem of interconnection, the presentation of the "internet" answer, a
detailed look at this answer, and an examination of its strengths and
weaknesses.
 
The author states that the reader should have a familiarity with programming
and basic data structures.  This is quite reasonable, given the topic.  For
much of the book, however, the descriptions are clear enough that the
intelligent novice should be able to make sense of it.
 
It is also suggested that this work could be used as a text for a more general
communications course and, again, I agree wholeheartedly.  While TCP/IP, and
the related suite of protocols (generally one per chapter) are used as the
specific examples, it is the concepts that are stressed.  The book is
refreshingly free of bias or "side", and when a particular aspect of TCP/IP is
weak, it definitely says so.
 
Comer is an excellent writer.  The book's layout and structure is well
organized and logical.  In addition, the writing itself is not only clear, but
an "easy read" for so technical a subject.  The text is broken by boldfaced
topical section headings, and supported by one sentence conceptual summations. 
By the end of the first three chapters you are well aware that when italics
show up, you'd better read carefully.
 
Volume II of the set is not so much a "follow on" as supporting material for
Volume I.  Much of the same material is covered, but in terms of the
programming and implementation of various TCP/IP related protocols.  While
Volume I could be used with a fairly naive audience, Volume II definitely
requires a programming background, preferably in C.
 
The second volume does not cover all of the protocols dealt with in the first. 
Discussion of implementation requires considerably more detail:  six chapters
are devoted to aspects of TCP alone.  Nevertheless, the examples given should
address most of the concepts needed to implement other protocols in the suite.
 
There are not one but two "volume III"s.  These cover client-server programming
and applications from an AT&T TLI and BSD socket perspective respectively.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993, 1994   BKINTTCP.RVW   940506