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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Helps to demystify the topic, but falls short, October 28, 2000
Background: I am a software tester who has worked on several projects using network technologies to implement the software solutions. In each case, I had no training or understanding of the underlying techologies used (a situation that creates tons of stress and frustration). I have been a purchaser of many of the "For Dummies" books because they do often succeed in providing an introduction to, and conceptual framework for understanding the subjects they discuss. My Review: This book has been a mixed bag. Before reading TCP/IP for Dummies, I did in fact feel "like a dummy". Reading it has helped to allay that feeling. The authors do succeed in explaining many TCP/IP technologies and networking issues. I now have an awareness of what was going on under the hood of those software implementations I worked on and why they were implemented as they were. However, I must agree fully with the reviewers who found the food analogies used by the authors excessive and unuseful. For the most part, the analogies did nothing to illustrate the concepts. At several points I just stopped reading altogether because I knew the author(s) were off on their food tangent again, had forgotten their subject matter, and more importantly their audience. At other times, I crossed out entire paragraphs because they contained nothing but the continued bad use of these annoying analogies and explained nothing. (However, I blame these lapses on the editors as much as on the authors.) Beyond these frustrations, I also took the following exceptions with the book: (1) the authors fail to explain key concepts such as ports and subnetting in an understandable fashion. I found no reference to or discussion of TCP/IP sockets. (I have subsequently learned that understanding these concepts are key to understanding the communication process between two networked computers). (2) the internet protocols are poorly explained and in some cases not explained at all. This lapse occurs in Chapter 6. The entire chapter needs to be re-written. (3) terms are introduced before they are explained (for example ports), or are not explained at all. The authors have one subsection in Chater 6 called "Protocol, application or service", the idea being that some TCP/IP functions are one, the other or sometimes all of these. Still, the authors do not provide any distinguishing explanation between these three things or provide a meaningful explanation of them. By the end of the book you know (sorta) but where is the simple explanation that could have given clear and immediate understanding to the reader? (4) the index is poor -- on a couple of occasions I could not find reference to the topics that I was looking for (memory escapes me now as to what they were). (5) the compact disc that comes with the book includes files containing the RFCs, which are technical specifications and explanations of the protocols, but there isn't any reference on the CD of the topic of the RFCs (just their number). You have to open up each file and browse them to see what the RFC is about. Who's got time to do this? In summary, the book has merit for the truly uninitiated, which is what I was at the time that I read it. I am no longer ignorant (which is in and of itself a reward). Of the several books that I browsed at the time I bought TCP/IP for Dummies, and those I've browsed since reading it, I still conclude that this was the right book to start with (even if it does leave you with that feeling you get after an unsatsfying meal: You're no longer hungry, but you do want and need more.) Sorry, I just couldn't resist the food analogy.
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by Doug Lowe
by Blair Rampling
by Ron Gilster
by Ron Gilster
