Notes On Chapter One -- Introduction

• 1.1 Growth of Computer Networking
  • Clearly the Internet has grown enormously quickly and has had a dramatic effect on large portions of the world society and economy.
  • Knowledge of communications networks has become an important job skill for computer scientists.
  
  
• 1.2 Complexity in Network Systems
  • There are a lot of different kinds of network technologies and a lot of different ways to connect networks together.
  • There really is no unified model of how networks are supposed to be designed.
  • There's no true agreement on terminology
  
  
• 1.3 Mastering the Complexity
  • To make sense of it all, you have to try to look at the big picture -- to get an idea of what the major concepts are.
  
  
• 1.4 Concepts and Terminology
  • The text aims to take the approach of explaining the major concepts.
  
  
• 1.5 The Value of Hands-On Experience
  • Hands-on experience will bring deeper understanding.
  • There is a companion lab text.
  
  
• 1.6 Organization of the Text
  • introduction to network applications and programming.
  • chapters on data transmission
  • chapters on packet transmission
  • chapters on internetworking
  • (more) chapters on networking applications
  
  
• 1.7 Summary