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Winsock Programmer's FAQ |
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![]() TCP/IP Illustrated, volume 1
by W. Richard Stevens Book reviewed 9/7/1998 Do you understand TCP/IP? I mean really understand it? Most Winsockers can get by with a basic understanding of stream protocols, but at least one person in your organization should have a deep knowledge of TCP/IP. Why not you? TCP/IP, though elegant, has some interesting complexities, mainly
due to the various optimizations and reliability enhancements in the
protocol. Did you know that the connection sequence consists of three
precisely-specified packets? Do you know what happens if one of those
packets is lost, corrupted, duplicated or received out of order? Do
you understand what it means when the "netstat -a" command reports
that your server program is in the FIN_WAIT_2 state? Someone on your
team needs to, or else you'll just stumble around in the darkness,
never really grasping TCP/IP Stevens writes wonderful books, and this one is no exception. It
is clear that he both understands his subject intimately, and takes
the time to write and rewrite his prose until his points are clear and
cogent. This book may not be the easiest read you'll tackle this year,
but it may be one of the most worthwhile. More importantly, the book's
600-page bulk is not fluffed-up. It really does have to be that big,
so while it may take you awhile to get through this book, you won't
regret the fairly steep price tag The Bottom LineStevens spends a lot of time tinkering with Unix kernels, particularly
the network stacks, and it shows Companion BooksThere are two other related books by Stevens you need to consider. First is Unix Network Programming. This is more code, and less theory. If you prefer to learn by tweaking code, this is the way to go. Or, if you've decided to go the theoretical way, you may want to make TCP/IP Illustrated your next purchase. This next volume in the series lists and explains all 15,000 lines of C code in the 4.3BSD TCP/IP stack. Related ResourcesW. Richard Stevens has a web site dedicated to his book. Among other things, you can download the book's source code, and check out the errata. There are several reviews of this book at Amazon.com. Addison-Wesley also has a page dedicated to this book. Among other things, this site includes the table of contents for the book. |
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Last modified on 6 October 2001 at 12:02 UTC-7 | Please send corrections to tangent@cyberport.com. |
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