Essential reading: My top 10 books (zz)

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March 01, 2001, 2:11 PM — I was rearranging the bookshelves in my office recently and was taken aback by the number of books I have. A quick count yielded well over a hundred volumes — and that was just the books on my shelves. I have quite a few more boxed up in storage. Have I read them all? You bet. Are they all page-turners, copious compendiums of geek wisdom? Absolutely not. Some of them are real stinkers.

Once I realized how many books I had — and how much money I've spent — I thought it would be interesting to make a list of my favorites. I've relied heavily on my library during my 15 years in information technology, and have found myself referring to the same books time and time again. Some of my choices will be obvious to you; others are a bit more esoteric. You may disagree with some of my selections, and that's fine by me. I'm interested in your opinions, so if you think I've really missed the mark, or if you have a favorite book of your own, send me an email. I'll post your comments in the ITworld.com Enterprise Networking forum.

Currier's Top Ten Information Technology Books

10. Algorithms

Robert Sedgewick

Addison-Wesley, 1983

It might seem strange to have a book on algorithms on a list of information technology books. After all, we're not woolly-haired computer scientists, we're technogeeks, right? Think again. Sedgewick's book provides a solid foundation in algorithms: computer-based methods for solving problems. If you can make it through this book, you'll have a good understanding of the mathematics behind most technology we use today. This is not an easy read, but it's well worth slogging through.

9. Casting the Net

Peter H. Salus

Addison-Wesley, 1995

Anyone working in the information technology field should have a good understanding of the Internet's history. Casting the Net is a detailed study of the growth of the Internet, from its beginnings in 1968 as four BBN nodes to late 1994. Like Algorithms, Casting the Net can be a bit hard to take at times — it is written in a semiacademic style and makes frequent references to Request For Comments and interoffice correspondence. But despite those drawbacks, the book is a treasure trove of documentation and history. Vint Cerf's "Requiem for the ARPANET" and Len Kleinrock's poems are worth the price of the book.

8. The Magic Garden Explained

Berny Goodheart & James Cox

Prentice Hall, 1994

If you've ever wondered what the internals of the Unix System V kernel look like, this book's for you. The Magic Garden Explained gives readers a detailed look at the kernel's structure, including memory management, filesystem management, process control, and streams. Of all the books on my list, this volume is probably the most difficult to read. You won't make it through The Magic Garden in one sitting. But if you've ever asked yourself "Why on earth did they design this feature this way?", you'll probably find the answer buried somewhere in the 664 pages of this book.

7. The Cathedral & the Bazaar

Eric S. Raymond

O'Reilly, 1999

If you've been involved with Linux, you've almost certainly heard of Eric Raymond's manifesto, The Cathedral & the Bazaar. Distributed on the Internet, Raymond's seminal document changed the way we think about software project management. Traditional project management relies heavily on centralized control and dictatorial management styles. The open source movement has shown that those techniques aren't the only ones that work, and that a loosely organized cabal of developers, connected by the Internet, can outprogram, outmanage, and outengineer the bloated bureaucracies of the world. If one book could be said to have kick-started the open source movement, this is it.

6. Unix Systems Administration Handbook (all editions)

Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, and Scott Seebass

Prentice Hall, 1989

Tired of reading technical manuals? Looking for a book that shows you how to do it, instead of telling you about it? The Unix Systems Administration Handbook distills thousands of bits of useful system administration knowledge into a single easy-to-read, 593-page book. By far my most-used sysadmin guide, the Unix Systems Administration Handbook covers important topics like booting a system, controlling processes, adding printers, configuring networking, adding a disk, mail, network news, and much, much more. If you can't find what you're looking for in this book, you probably don't need to know about it. And I really like the cartoons.

5. Network Intrusion Detection (first edition)

Stephen Northcutt

New Riders, 1999

Intrusion detection is a black art. Until Stephen Northcutt's book was published in 1999 (a second edition was just released), detailed instructions on designing and operating an effective enterprise network intrusion detection system were either classified or impossible to find. I relied heavily on Network Intrusion Detection while building the IDS systems we currently have in place on our Internet feeds. Northcutt covers distributed denial of service attacks, sensor design and placement, risk management, and response techniques. He also makes a strong business case for implementing intrusion detection systems — that information can help you convince your management that intrusion detection is well worth the money. If you have the slightest interest in intrusion detection, this book is a must-have.

4. Where Wizards Stay Up Late

Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon

Simon & Schuster, 1996

Where Wizards Stay Up Late is a joy to read. Unlike Casting The Net, Wizards is written for a general audience. I read Wizards in a single sitting. Of all the books on my list, it is the most likely to appeal to non-technogeeks. There is a wealth of detail on the formative days of the Internet, and Hafner and Lyons include enough juicy gossip to keep you flipping pages well past your normal bedtime. Published in 1996, Wizards is now getting a bit long in the tooth, but that doesn't make it any less compelling. Find a copy and be prepared to lose yourself for several hours.

3. Internetworking With TCP/IP

Douglas E. Comer

Prentice Hall, 1995

Douglas Comer first came to my attention in 1987 when my boss, freshly returned from the first Interop, tossed a copy of Internetworking on my desk and said, "This guy gave a talk at Interop. You might want to read his book." I devoured Internetworking and learned more about TCP/IP in a few days than I had thought possible. This was the book that started my networking career. After reading Internetworking, I finally understood subnet masking, RARP, and silly-window syndrome. It took me several more years to understand how little I really knew, but until TCP/IP Illustrated was published in 1994, this was the book I referred to time and time again. I bought a copy for every new employee I hired, and continue to do so today.

2. Unix Network Programming ((//z 2012-5-28 13:13:16 PM IS2120@CSDN))

W. Richard Stevens

Prentice Hall, 1990

1. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 ((//z 2012-5-28 13:13:16 PM IS2120@CSDN))

W. Richard Stevens

Addison-Wesley, 1994

What can I say? It's no coincidence that my top two choices are by the same author. The first technical book I truly lusted after was W. Richard Stevens's Unix Network Programming. I spotted it in Duke's Gothic Bookshop, but at the time (mid-1990), I couldn't afford a copy. My wife, after enduring my begging, managed to scrape together the money and purchase a copy for me. The date on the tag is Sept. 11, 1990; it cost $43, a princely sum for a network engineer in those days.

UNP provides readers with an incredibly detailed tutorial on networking and includes numerous source code examples. Most of the code I wrote in the early '90s was based on examples in Stevens's book. There is no doubt in my mind that I could not have gotten as far in my career as I have without UNP — I simply wouldn't have had the knowledge.

Stevens's next book, TCP/IP Illustrated, blew Comer off the top of my "most used" books. If there could be only one recommended networking text, this book would have my nomination. Stevens gives readers a detailed description of TCP/IP, from the link layer up through the transport and application layers. If there's anything about TCP/IP that isn't between the covers of this book, you don't need to know about it.

It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of W. Richard Stevens on Sept. 1, 1999. He was only 48 — far too young to be taken from us. I never had the opportunity to meet Stevens, but I think of him almost every day — that's how often I find myself pulling my copy of TCP/IP Illustrated off my bookshelf. This column is dedicated to his memory.

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