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From: libes@nbs-amrf.UUCP (Don Libes)
Newsgroups: net.lan,net.dcom,net.decus
Subject: Re: Re: What is "ISO"?
Message-ID: <244@nbs-amrf.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Apr-86 10:39:58 EST
Article-I.D.: nbs-amrf.244
Posted: Sun Apr  6 10:39:58 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Apr-86 22:36:12 EST
References: <366@bu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: National Bureau of Standards
Lines: 39
Xref: watmath net.lan:1407 net.dcom:1796 net.decus:298

> I would recommend M.A. Padlipsky's "The Elements of Networking Style"
> as one (certainly not the only!) book to look at when comparing and
> contrasting ISO and TCP/IP et al. He's completely and wonderfully biased
> and the book is just plain fun, I use it in one of my classes.

You're kidding.  I think that book is complete trash.  It ought to
be called "M.A. Padlipsky's Incredibly Biased Views about His Own
Work".  It's certainly not on par with other "Element of ..." books.

All he talks about is ISO and Arpanet.  There are pretty pictures
on the cover about things like Tymnet, Mitrenet, SNA, etc.  None of
these are covered in the book.  All he talks about is why ISO sucks
and Arpa is the solution to all ISO's problems.  Very little
theory.  This can be ok, because he seems to know what he is
talking about but it doesn't come across in the book because of his
incredibly obnoxious style.

Incredibly caustic.  He insults someone with every other sentence.
He explains things by analogizing to the things that most people
never heard of, and uses "in" jokes instead of explanations.
Because of this, I didn't understand a lot of what he was saying.

An example is when he says "they did such and such, because the air
must be bad in Gaithersburg" when he is critizing work done at NBS
(which happens to be in Gaithersburg, MD).  It's not that I was
offended by his critizing NBS; rather this was one of the few
criticisms I understood (and therefore remember).

I have never seen a book so bad before, and am amazed that
anyone would publish this garbage.  They absolutely gave the guy
free reign to do what ever he felt like.

If they cut out all the garbage in the book, it would be about 25
pages long.  Besides the 6 or so introductions, prefaces and
chapters that had absolutely nothing to do with networking, there
must have been 30 pages or so of cute sayings, one to a page.  Boy,
did I feel ripped off.

Don Libes       {seismo,umcp-cs}!nbs-amrf!libes