Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (4th Edition)

I used this book for a networks class in college. It does cover all the material that we went over in class. Although this book does contain a lot of useful information, it is also stuffed full of some complete nonsense. There's a lot of stupid stupid examples when they try to describe something technical with real world situtations. Sometimes the examples don't even relate well but are just in there because the authors felt they had to force an example into the book. Because we had to read the book for class I spent a bunch of hours reading through 500 pages of text with only 200 pages of real information. The main problem with this book is that it's really a 200 page book expanded out to 700-800 pages and I really can't appreciate that cause I have to read so much more.

Of all the CS textbooks I've read in college in these 2 and a half years, this is perhaps the only book that I can understand the content in the first time reading it.

You know how some textbooks (particularly math and physics) are written in a way that it may be difficult to understand? This book is definitely not one of those. Yet it still covers the material throughly, from general ideas to technical details. I am glad that my school chooses this book as the textbook for my networking class, instead of some random book that is impossible to understand.

I have taken a Cisco CCNA Networking class, and I believe, though I have not completed this book, that it is significantly better. I enjoyed starting at the application layer. It also explains things in a much less clinical and detached manner. One thing that always irked me about Cisco was the ridiculously dumbed down explanations, the information was also very sparse. This book goes into significant detail. I really think it's the difference between wanting to actually study the material, and wanting to know enough to pass a cert test. Which, incidentally, Cisco does not even do very well either.

One thing that I dislike about this book is the lack of a glossary of terms or acronym definition listing. I did however buy a library edition that has a billion type-o's and misspellings. But if you have the regular edition and this is a problem I suggest searching "networking acronyms" on google, there are some good websites for help.

The book was in good condition and arrived in a timely manner.

The content is very accurate, the pages are neat and the hardcover is nice for transport.