An Introduction to Computer Networks (2020) | Hacker News Reader

An Introduction to Computer Networks (2020)

intronetworks.cs.luc.edu

180 pointsteleforce22 comments

Any other interesting books or tutorials about Networks?

Larry Peterson and Bruce Davie have open-sourced their book - Computer Networks: A Systems Approach (https://github.com/SystemsApproach/book).

I am curious, what is everyone's preferred book on CN? The only one I have read is Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach by Kurose and Ross. When learning CN for the first time, I like their approach of beginning with the application layer and moving towards the physical layer. Their figures are also quite intuitive.

Preferred book depend on why you are learning networks. TCP/IP Illustrated is still one of the best books about networks for software developers and SRE (though some chapters have little practical relevance today and can be skipped). But a network engineer would need a different book. As well a CS researcher.

We used both of the books you mentioned in college and also "Computer Networks by Tanenbaum"

Jim Kurose and his co-author made a lot of material related to their book available online during the pandemic, including video lectures and some interactive problems (https://gaia.cs.umass.edu/kurose_ross/lectures.php).

As an aside, I was briefly in contact with him about using some of his course materials in a networks class I teach and he could not have been more helpful, seems like a very nice man.

Thanks for sharing that. The top down approach is +interesting. I think software architects will benefit from this approach to networking.

Tanenbaum's book was the one that clicked for me, doing self-study some years ago.

Even though he has presumably retired now the book is still being updated:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Networks-Global-Andrew-Tan...

I found High Performance Browser Networking (https://hpbn.co) to be a practical, well written resource for the working programmer.

I just shared the same link. Agreed, it's fantastic.

Understanding computer networks by analogy: https://memo.mx/understanding-networks-by-analogy/

Beej's Guide to Network Programming: https://beej.us/guide/bgnet/

https://hpbn.co/ is an awesome resource.

https://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/cnp3.html

Terminology warning: Network science is a thing

An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking: ATM Networks, the Internet, and the Telephone Network by S.Keshav

The above book is unique in that it explains the principles behind different types of networks.

http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/

This one starts from the very basics and slowly builts up your intuition.

One more:

Internet System Handbook by Daniel Lynch and Marshall Rose - https://archive.org/details/internetsystemha00erne/page/776/...

This is a early 90's classic which describes the "complete" Internet as it existed at that time. The unique thing with this book is that it brings all the different components together thus giving you a overall picture. A lot of things have changed since then (mainly in application layer protocols) but much of the core protocols and infrastructure are still relevant. Reading this alongside more recent architectural books will give you better insight into the Internet and Networking in general.

I'd not care about how many "introduction" are there, if I'd find one uptodate or/and how-to-do-it-really-well version.

Random question: What's the plant or tree on the cover page of the book? The one in the picture appearing on top right corner?

Can't be entirely sure but to me it looks like a Swietenia mahagoni

> The photo is of mahogany leaves, presumably Swietenia mahagoni. The original image was taken by Homer Edward Price and placed at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mahogany-leaves_(560... under a Creative Commons license; the image as used here has been cropped.

Source: https://intronetworks.cs.luc.edu/current1/html/preface.html#...

is there videos about networking in lectures format?

See the link I posted above for lecture videos based on the Kurose & Ross book

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