| As in the first edition, I’ve tried to make this Encyclopedia a comprehensive source of information about matters relating to networking. I’ve also tried to present the information in a clear and useful manner.
This book contains comprehensive, straightforward summaries of the major concepts, issues, and approaches related to networking. Networking is defined broadly to encompass configurations ranging from a couple of connected computers just a few feet apart to a network of several thousand machines (of all types and sizes) scattered around the world. You’ll find discussions of networking as it’s done by servers and clients, managers and agents, peers, and even over the telephone.
You probably won’t find anything here that you can’t find in other places. However, I don’t know of any other book or source that collects so much network-related information in one place. To find all the information summarized here, you would need to check hundreds of books, disks, articles, Web pages, or other documents.
Despite its hefty size, this encyclopedia just scratches the surface of what there is to know about networking. After all, how complete can any book be if just the World Wide Web on the Internet has over 10 million hypertext documents. I do think, however, that this book scratches deeper than most other references you’ll find.
This revised edition updates entries for concepts and technologies that change rapidly or where there have been major developments. I’ve also added considerable material about the Internet (and especially about the World Wide Web), since interest in this networking phenomenon is growing at an astounding pace. |
