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From: gds@SPAM.ISTC.SRI.COM.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Learning TCP
Message-ID: <8702231830.AA01935@spam.istc.sri.com>
Date: Mon, 23-Feb-87 13:30:17 EST
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Posted: Mon Feb 23 13:30:17 1987
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The trick to learning the Internet protocols (for me at least) was
knowing where to look for things.  I found these sources to be valuable
for different things.

* RFCs -- for the protocol definition or guidelines to protocol
  implementors
* The networking portions of the operating system documentation -- for
  general overviews of how the protocols fit into the operating system
* Books -- better explanations of the protocols than RFCs, plus examples
  (Tanenbaum comes to mind, but since the book predates the current
  Internet setup a lot of information isn't there, like TCP, EGP, etc.)
* The source code -- when the documentation isn't enough, or something
  is broken
* A guru -- when I can't figure out how to do it myself
* This list -- when I and the guru can't figure out how to do it
  ourselves, or there is no guru
* Conferences -- for sharing information in person, and hearing what the
  gurus have to say

Perhaps some ambitious person with a lot of time on their hands could
write a series of books encompassing all this information.

Fundamental Protocols, anyone? :-)

--gregbo