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From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.protocols.misc
Subject: Re: OSI-model software
Message-ID: <100@spdcc.COM>
Date: Sun, 7-Jun-87 13:21:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.100
Posted: Sun Jun  7 13:21:46 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jun-87 01:21:38 EDT
References: <223@diab.UUCP> <233@idacrd.UUCP> <526@alliant.UUCP> <19265@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Distribution: world
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 24
Summary: Padlipsky's book
Xref: mnetor comp.dcom.lans:498 comp.protocols.misc:32

It's unfortunate that Padlipsky, in naming his collection of essays
"The Elements of Networking Style", seems to have eschewed all the
recommendations of its namesake, "The Elements of Style" by Strunk
and White.  Although there is some very good technical content in
the book, it is buried beneath a rambling, self-indulgent conversational
style which is very hard to read and follow.  Padlipsky makes a lot of
his deliberate decision to avoid "seriousness" in a technical book,
but that doesn't mean that it has to represent the worst of an engineer's
first drafts.

I wonder, too, how accessible much of the material is to newcomers--many
of the essays dive immediately into the details of NCP, the protocol suite
used on the ARPAnet before the introduction of TCP/IP.  When I was reading
it, I was glad that I had worked at BBN during the NCP/TCP transition where
I had to support both protocol suites--I had some context to work with.

This isn't to detract from its uniqueness -- it's practically the only 
book of its kind, written from the point of view of one of the original
ARPA designers.  But it helps if you read it as a kind of "oral history"
transcribed verbatim and manage to get past its idiosyncratic style.
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.harvard.edu
dyer@spdcc.COM aka {ihnp4,harvard,linus,ima,bbn,halleys}!spdcc!dyer