Beej's Guide to Network Programming was how I fumbled my way into socket programming AND C. I can't remember if I first encountered it in the late 90's or early 2000's. It's funny to think about that world now. Unless you had a shell account or ran Linux or some sort of Unix you had to _pay_ (or... not pay) to get access to a C compiler.

If you were lucky you'd get access to some FTP servers via IRC that might have some ZIP files full of good text docs, or wander upon some hacking clan's site that had good tutorials or info. But more likely you'd try to cobble it all together from as many sources as you could find.

I'm really glad we're in a time, and for the most part a community, that values sharing information free and wide, and supporting FOSS tools that put all this knowledge within reach.