dayger@penelope.Oswego.EDU (Tim Dayger) (09/05/90)
All: I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of John Quaterman's book the "Matrix". I'd like to hear from people who've read it. My main questions are these; 1) How comprehensive/complete is it? Do you feel that you gained a substantial amount of knowledge/understanding from it? 2) How "readable" is this work: Is it written in fairly plain English, such that someone oF normal intelligence with general knowledge of existing networks can fathom it? Or is this another one of those "textbooks" where the author tries to dazzle the reader with his extreme brilliance and self-importance by packing 20 jargon terms into every sentence; wether needed or not? 3) Is it worth the $49.95 sticker-price? Your response is appreciated. --- Tim E Dayger dayger@oswego.oswego.edu dayger@snyoswva.bitnet ------------------------
de5@de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) (09/05/90)
In article <1990Sep5.020102.21585@oswego.Oswego.EDU>, dayger@penelope.Oswego.EDU (Tim Dayger) writes: > >I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of John Quaterman's book the "Matrix". Small nit: it's "Quarterman", not "Quaterman". > 1) How comprehensive/complete is it? Do you feel that you gained a > substantial amount of knowledge/understanding from it? It's *very* complete. I'd call it the quantum reference network manual. > 2) How "readable" is this work: Is it written in fairly plain English, > such that someone oF normal intelligence with general knowledge of > existing networks can fathom it? I think so. > 3) Is it worth the $49.95 sticker-price? Yes. -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) These are my opinions. Martin Marietta Energy Systems Workstation Support
tanida@alvis.css.gov (Tom Tanida) (09/07/90)
In article <1990Sep5.020102.21585@oswego.Oswego.EDU>, dayger@penelope (Tim Dayger) writes: >I'm thinking about purchasing a copy of John Quaterman's book the "Matrix". >I'd like to hear from people who've read it. > > 1) How comprehensive/complete is it? Do you feel that you gained a > substantial amount of knowledge/understanding from it? I learned quite a bit about the Net reading this book. It has a little of everything, so there isn't a lot of *depth*, but there is quite a bit of *breadth*. In this sense it also provides a decent net reference. > 2) How "readable" is this work: Is it written in fairly plain English, > such that someone oF normal intelligence with general knowledge of > existing networks can fathom it? Or is this another one of those It's very readable- mainly because it is presenting overviews of a lot of things. The maps are interesting but in a way useless since nobody could ever trace Internet/Usenet paths from a map with a billion lines going to/from a billion sites on one page. > 3) Is it worth the $49.95 sticker-price? I think so. Of course, I bought it discounted for $41, so maybe I wouldn't know. :) -Tom