craig@SICS.SE (Craig Partridge) (01/11/91)
I think some folks who have complained about "ENS", have missed its point. Yes, the prose is sometimes wild and crazy, but then again, it is intended that way. Half the point of the book is to have some fun (and certainly, I, as a reader, had a lot of fun reading it). As for technical content, that ain't bad neither. My copy of the book is believed to still be on a boat, somewhere in the Atlantic,* courtesy of the postal service, but I recall good discussions on issues in externalization, design of reference models and on cultural desires (in corporations) to develop one's own networking protocol suite. MAP's writing style should not confuse you into believing there's no substance behind it. Craig *no doubt dodging the Next Wave, but I digress...
cpw%snow-white@LANL.GOV (C. Philip Wood) (01/13/91)
I second that. "ENS" should be required reading for anyone entering the Internet arena. And it's less filling! Phil
mart@csri.toronto.edu (Mart Molle) (01/15/91)
In article <9101111002.AA08769@garuda.sics.se> craig@SICS.SE (Craig Partridge) writes: > >I think some folks who have complained about "ENS", have missed its point. > >Yes, the prose is sometimes wild and crazy, but then again, it is intended >that way. Half the point of the book is to have some fun (and certainly, I, >as a reader, had a lot of fun reading it). > >As for technical content, that ain't bad neither. [...] MAP's >writing style should not confuse you into believing there's no substance >behind it. Sorry to disagree, but I think you got it backwards: it is, most unfortunately, MAP and the Internet In Crowd who have missed the point. Many years ago, after seeing a book review somewhere (I don't remember anymore, maybe IEEE Spectrum or Proc. IEEE), I ordered a copy to use as reference material in my Computer Networks course to counteract the strong OSI bias in Tanenbaum's book (First edition, the second seems better...). None of the students was willing to read the whole thing -- even `Those Dreaded Engineers' who publish a student newspaper most notable for its jokes and lack of good taste were turned off by it. Taken by itself, the title essay `The Elements of Networking Style' was good enough for me to forgive the `wild and crazy' prose. But taken as a whole, the book was repetitive and monotonous. Furthermore, who was the intended audience? He seemed to be preaching to the converted. While I'm sure people like Craig Partridge had a lot of fun reading it (heck -- I admit it -- I did too ...when I wasn't being too distracted by the repetition...), they already *knew* the lessons he was preaching. On the other hand, he seemed all too willing to hurl insults at anybody who he deemed pro-ISO, and hence ignorant of Those Lessons, to the point where I'm convinced that none of those people read it (or, if they did, took anything he said seriously). In other words, I'm sure The Book had zero impact on the state of the networking world. It should have had more. Quite possibly, it *could* have had more if a bit more effort had been put into integrating the material. Mart L. Molle Computer Systems Research Institute University of Toronto Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416)978-4928