Given that so much of software engineer is on web servers and clients, one of the most immediately valuable areas of computer science is computer networking. With the advent of the World Wide Web, the global Internet has rapidly become the dominant type of computer network. It now enables people around the world to use the Web for e-commerce and interactive entertainment applications, in addition to email and IP telephony. As a result, the study of computer networking is now synonymous with the study of the Internet and its applications.
Recently, I finished an online Stanford course called “Introduction to Computer Networking.” The course focuses on explaining how the Internet works, ranging from how bits are modulated on wires and in wireless to application-level protocols like BitTorrent and HTTP. It also explains the principles of how to design networks and network protocols. I want to share a small bit of the knowledge I acquired from the course here.
The easiest way to understand computer networks is through the compare itself. Computers are general-purpose machines that mean different things to different people. Some of us just want to do basic tasks like word processing or chatting with Facebook friends and so we couldn’t care less how that happens under the covers. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of us…
