Rating: 
Summary: Boring Dictionary of N/W Programming
Review: Though book is preety straight forward.
It rarely talks about tricks,code is highly redundant in the sense that everywhere error checking is being done.
Which makes it highly boring is that if you are dealing with some kind of N/W installation or S/W trobuleshooting.
Talks much more on code,
Rating:
Summary: Boring Dictionary of N/W Programming
Review: Though book is preety straight forward.
It rarely talks about tricks,code is highly redundant in the sense that everywhere error checking is being done.
Which makes it highly boring is that if you are dealing with some kind of N/W installation or S/W trobuleshooting.
Talks much more on code,
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: When skimming this book, and reading the reviews posted here, I had my doubts about the book because of Stevens' extensive use of his wrappers. However, after taking the time to sit down and read the book, I found that peoples complaints about the wrappers were unfounded. Yes, the wrappers are there to make the examples work cross-platform, but if you read the book, not just skim, you will see that every wrapper (atleast every one that I've encountered so far) is fully detailed in why it was written, how it was written, and how its implemented. You can alter the source to use the standard .h's and functions, the information is there to do that, just take the time to read. If you pick something halfway through the book then try to figure out what he's doing there without reading some of the intro chapters, then you're going to miss it. An excellent book, and I look forward to moving onto his second volume..
Rating: 
Summary: First Edition was Better
Review: While I understand the author has died, and am sorry for this profound loss, I still have some comments. The second edition does not resemble the first edition in any way; it is a complete rewrite. What I liked about the first edition was that it provided programs that worked, and had examples of the Unix systems calls. The second edition does not. The examples are flawed in two ways. The first is that the author makes extensive use of wrapper functions he wrote, which do not correspond to what is provided with the OS, thereby making the examples meaningless. Had the author provided decent documentation of these routines and source in some comprehensible way, this might have worked. The second is that the author thought that IPV6 was a good idea. While it may very well be a good idea, it isn't going to happen any time soon, as there are too many existing, fielded systems to deal with in this world. It is about as likely that four byte IP addresses will be eliminated as it is that ftp will become unpopular, flawed though it is. Try to buy a used copy of the 1st edition, as I found this book opaque. At present, I plan to search out some runnable examples on the web, as this author's programs will not run. Peter
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