Starting with the 6th edition, it has separated control and forwarding planes for the network layer to reflect the increasing popularity of software-defined networking (SDN) i.e. evolution of hardware centric to software centric networking. The fact that even before 6th edition when the chapter on networking is still monolithic (combined chapter on control and forwarding), it has already mentioned about the separation concerns between the control and forwarding planes while other popular textbooks still not highlighting this important matter. In addition, unlike many textbooks you can download all the supporting materials slides, exercises, animation, etc, of the from the authors' public website and Prof. Kurose video lectures are also available in Youtube.
My main wish lists for the next edition (9th) hopefully include Smart-NIC for modern approach to in-network computation and also the newly standardized segment routing for network layer QoS.
If there's The Nobel Prize in Literature for textbook authors, the authors of this book should be more than deserving.
I agree completely, CNTDA is a great book and Jim Kurose, the author does a superb job covering some of the chapter contents in his youtube series (Ch1 to 6.x) from then on, another channel continues each chapter video
Such a hasty generalization. It's not that we don't care about PHY, but expecting in depth PHY treatment in modern networking book is like expecting semiconductor physics in the The Art of Electronics book [1]. Personally PHY is my passion and trying to propose a new reliable PHY waveform to 5G and upcoming 6G standards.
Modern PHY is like bit twiddling in programming, 99% programmer don't do it and don't care unless you are doing HPC or device driver. In networking those who're doing PHY belong to communication engineering field. For modern networking the relevant PHY mostly dealing with digital I/Q signal for wired/wireless and there are many excellent books on the subject such as this [2].
I consider the TOC deeper research than the blurb on site. Just pointing out it doesn't mention the book is about the physical layer at all - a probable explanation for why you didn't find it in the TOC.
To clarify, the praiseful comment made me curious and I wanted to know what's so good about the book, so I went through the Table of Contents and noticed that the physical layer is missing. I was just trying to point out that this layer is equally important as others for someone looking to gain a good grasp of networking.
> I was just trying to point out that this layer is equally important as others for someone looking to gain a good grasp of networking.
I don't agree. For those onboarding onto the subject, their mental model will be focused around the higher level details implemented around the application layer. The physical layer only starts to become remotely relevant once you start to delve onto very specialized topics.
Agreed. The physical layer really is a whole different game. I know it exists and I know various limitations of different mediums, but once you get into that low level physics and radio math you are basically stepping out of computer science at that point.
I highly doubt even 1% of engineers could describe how WiFi works on the radio / physical level let alone anything about the variosu ways we make wires and light works.
https://gaia.cs.umass.edu/kurose_ross/index.php
Starting with the 6th edition, it has separated control and forwarding planes for the network layer to reflect the increasing popularity of software-defined networking (SDN) i.e. evolution of hardware centric to software centric networking. The fact that even before 6th edition when the chapter on networking is still monolithic (combined chapter on control and forwarding), it has already mentioned about the separation concerns between the control and forwarding planes while other popular textbooks still not highlighting this important matter. In addition, unlike many textbooks you can download all the supporting materials slides, exercises, animation, etc, of the from the authors' public website and Prof. Kurose video lectures are also available in Youtube.
My main wish lists for the next edition (9th) hopefully include Smart-NIC for modern approach to in-network computation and also the newly standardized segment routing for network layer QoS.
If there's The Nobel Prize in Literature for textbook authors, the authors of this book should be more than deserving.