Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!NRTC.NORTHROP.COM!Stef
From: Stef@NRTC.NORTHROP.COM (Einar Stefferud)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: "The Open Book" by Rose - your opinions sought
Message-ID: <5724.652665411@nma.com>
Date: 6 Sep 90 23:56:51 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Stef@nrtc.northrop.com
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 32

> To my kmnowledge, no book comparable to Comer exists for OSI and
> I doubt that one will be created any time soon.  Open Book is about the
> best available and you might as well buy it (everyone else does),

Damn faint praise, it seems to me.  Better to note that the OPEN BOOK is
the best there is for OSI today, and perhaps for years to come, though
we could hope that more good authors would come to the fore with good
books on OSI.  

> but it isn't as concrete as Comer because in the OSI world, these
> things are still being figured out.  

Don't forget that the Comer book does not cover some very imporant
TCP/IP topics, like X and NFS.  It is also weak on applications like
MAIL.  In short, the Comer book only covers a portion of the total
TCP/IP suite.  No one covers it all (either).

> I think that is a limitation we just have to accept for a while yet.
> And in part, it will probably exist forever, because OSI is rather
> broader than TCP/IP and thus won't be able to be covered to the same
> depth in anything like the same number of pages, once we have figured
> out the right details.  This is wild speculation, but I'd estimate a
> treatment of ALL of the OSI protocols to comparable depth would run
> about 5000 pages.  /Bill Barns

Well, I expect that you are right about how it is not possible to write
a reasonable sized book to cover all of OSI, but one aught to be able to
write good books about portions of OSI.  I think that is what Marshall
Rose did in the OPEN BOOK.  Now it is someone else's turn to do it for
another portion.  

Best...\Stef