Customer Reviews

Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol. III, Client-Server Programming and Applications--BSD Socket Version (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is very well written. I suspect it was written with college students in mind. As a professional, I went through it like a hot knife through butter. I really liked his showing a number of ways to solve a problem, with a discussion of the tradeoffs (e.g., iterative vs. concurrent servers). The programming is in ANSI C. I enjoyed seeing a makefile and some Bourne shell scripts in this book. So many authors act like this stuff doesn't even exist. You might want to get the UNIX Network Programming, Vol.1, book by W. Richard Stevens also. The Stevens book serves better as a reference and has more detail. E.g., Stevens talks about tcpdump, but Comer doesn't. Yet Comer's book is very easy to read and gives you a clear picture without drowning you in details.

If you are a beginer of tcp/ip programming, like me, you will find this book more clear and readable than that by Richard stevens(I have his "Unix programming with TCP/IP" and can make a comparison). The authors give many practical hints and advices which I found very useful. I particularly like the chapter " Practical hints and techniques for unix servers". My only complain is there is not enough description on RPC. If Douglas really want to cover this area, more details should be given. I hope the parts on rpc in this book were as clear as those on socket programming.

I used this book from cover to cover in a Unix Socket Programming class. A few good points about this book: 1) The sample do compiled on Linux with no problems. That's a plus. 2) The author emphasized good client-server design principles. 3) The introduction is gentle and very readble. 4) The code sample is directly,simple and not riddled with unnecessary details to "show off" like some authors do.

You don't need much Unix to do exercise in this book.About the only System calls you need to know are fork(),Select(),sigalarm() and execve(). The book could have been expanded to cover HTTP,SOAP and some other protocols to give it a 5stars.

This is perhaps the best-written technical book I have ever read. I didn't know squat about networking or TCP/IP before I read this book and now I consider myself quite prepared to write client and server applications. Comer and Stevens spare the theoretical and abstract and supply plenty of real-world examples (and code) that make learning the subject enjoyable and effective.

This is a great book and I see why some teachers chose it for grad students. I didn't do well in networks last semester because I had to learn BSD TCP/IP sockets from sources like book snippets my teacher gave me, man pages, and various Internet sources. The textbook I had to buy for class has almost no C code or any explanations about BSD sockets. So, I invested into this and the Richard Stevens (UNIX Network Programming) book. Both are excellent assests.

Pro (This book): I like how it explained what each important function did (like read/write)

Con: The example code could be a little better.

This book is well-written and will be a good reference once I'm through with my class. I bought all 3 volumes since I could get them at a great price. What especially helped: sometimes books would take up to 50 pages explaining a topic. The "Internetworking with TCP/IP" series are excellent at giving the bottom line and at times makes it easier to understand the details within the longer-winded pages of other books. In a way, to me, it's like a set of cliff notes to my textbook.

If you're baffled about network programming, these books might be worth a try.

Comer is the master of writing technical books for the masses. Immediately after finishing any chapter, you will understand the concepts clearly. His code is the best examples of C/C++ programming to be found anywhere. It is clean, concise and robust. A nonmiss for the serious programmer.

I have to hand it to Mr. Comer and Stevens, they have done an excellent job writing a book that explains everything clearly with very well defined (and actually working) examples.
If you are interested in learning TCP/IP programming on Unix platform this is the only book you need.
It does assume that you have knowledge of some C programming, but it does not assume that you are an expert.
Excellent Book.

I have been using Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume III for almost ten years now to teach a graduate course on client server programming. I think it is perhaps the most perfect textbook ever written. Comer's code is exquisite and can be used to teach clear and efficient coding in C. His explanations are perfect. He says everything that needs to be said, and no more. His presentation about the foundation of all distributed computing is clear concise and on target. Students require some reminders about the fact that this book can't be read like a novel, or like any less competent textbook. They need to read and carefully consider each line. Comer includes everything that is needed in the book and its appendices. In every case, you see very careful and concise statements of how things really work. I just reread his chapter on NFS this morning and was reminded about how he can take the complex and invisible and make it completely understandable.

Professor Comer's books are wonderful, but his contributions don't stop there. If you pride yourself on writing and are new to the academic realm you might find it useful to go to his website and read his advice on writing a dissertation. If you are a PhD student, or a master's student writing a thesis, this should be a mandatory stop. If you are simply a person who takes pride in writing clearly, you will learn important things.

Get all three volumes. There is no better way to learn TCP/IP. The read is excellent. The examples are very excellent. Definiirly, a classic for years to come.

This book had a good introduction to networking, and great explainations on the jargon used in network programming (TCP,Datagrams, OSI Model, etc). The code snippets where nice, but many of the wrapper functions that they used were shuffled around from chapter to chapter. This forced me to keep going back 20+ pages to search for some wrapper function that had been created.

It could have been better if the code built upon itself a little more. Although theory on the "do's and do not's on client/server programmer" where very useful!

The end of the book got a little too indepth into tunneling and other features of networking which seemed to go beyond the scope of the subject for "Programmers".