[心平气和读经典]The TCP/IP Guide(002)

The TCP/IP Guide

[Page 41, 42]

Goals of The TCP/IP Guide | 本书的目标

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Every author who sets out to write a book or other document has certain objectives that he or she hopes to accomplish when the work is completed. This is why you can go into a library or bookstore, pick up several books that cover the same subject, and discover that they are surprisingly different -- not just in their content or scope, but in their entire approach to the material.

每一个作者在着手写一本书或者一个文档的时候，都有几个小目标希望在完成写作的时候得以实现。这就是你去图书馆或者书店，拿起几本具有同一个主题书的时候，发现它们存在着令人讶异的不同。这些不同不但表现在内容或者范围上，而且表现在组织材料的手法上。

I too had a number of goals when I set out to write this Guide; you certainly don't need to know them in order to read and appreciate the material, but knowing what I had in mind while I was writing may help you while you are reading. And if you are reading this information prior to licensing The TCP/IP Guide, knowing what I strove for in writing the Guide may help you decide if this is the right resource for you.

当我开始写这个指南的时候，我也有一些小目标。当你阅读和欣赏这些材料的时候，你当然不需要了解我的那些小目标。但是，知道我在写的时候当时心里是怎么想的，在你阅读的时候可能会帮助到你。如果您正在阅读TCP/IP指南许可证之前的信息，了解我在编写本指南时所努力呈现的内容，可能有助于您判定这本书适不适合您阅读。

My overall goal in writing this Guide was to create a resource that would allow anyone to obtain a deep understanding of how TCP/IP technologies really work. To accomplish this, I had a number of specific objectives that guided my writing efforts:

• Comprehensiveness: Like most authors writing a resource that covers a large subject, I wanted the TCP/IP Guide to be comprehensive. Of course no single document can cover everything, so I have had to limit the scope of the material. However, I feel I cover more about TCP/IP as a whole than any other single book or other resource.
• Comprehensibility: Creating a resource that is comprehensive is important, but I felt that it was even more important that the Guide be comprehensible. Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to review many hundreds of books, guides, Web sites and papers related to networking. I have found that even though most of them are generally high in quality, too many use unexplained technical jargon or assume extensive prior knowledge of networking concepts and technologies on the part of the reader. I worked very hard to ensure that my descriptions, even of very complex concepts, can be understood by almost every student of networking.
• Rationale: It's certainly important to know how every TCP/IP protocol functions. However, to gain a true understanding of complex material, one also needs to understand the reasons behind why things are what they are. In writing this material I have always tried to explain not just the what but also the why of TCP/IP. I have anticipated and answered questions that I believed would commonly arise in the mind of someone learning about this technology.
• Illustrations: A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. There are many concepts that no amount of verbiage will adequately explain, while a simple illustration will do the trick. For this reason, I spent many months creating over 300 full-color diagrams (some simple and some not so simple!) to complement the written material in The TCP/IP Guide.
• User-Friendliness: I have intentionally broken many of the rules of conventional book authorship, in creating a document that uses a conversational, first-person style, and no small amount of humor where appropriate. My intention was to make you feel at home while you read material that can be quite technically difficult. I want you to think of me like a friend sitting next to you at your computer explaining how TCP/IP works, rather than a professor preaching at you from a pulpit.
• Organization: Many networking books consist of dozens of subjects just listed one after the other, leaving the reader to wonder how everything fits together. When I first began this Guide, I spent weeks just organizing it, with the result being a hierarchical structure that indicates clearly how subjects are inter-related. I also carefully laid out each individual section to ensure that it covered its topic in a way that made sense.
• Multiple Levels of Detail: I realized that some people reading a TCP/IP Guide might only want a quick summary of the operation of its constituent protocols, while others want to learn all the nuances of how everything works. I have provided the full details that most readers will want, while also providing overview topics in each section that summarize each technology for quick perusal. This gives you the option of either skimming the surface or "diving deep", as you choose.
• Platform Independence: I have endeavored whenever possible to avoid describing TCP/IP in terms specific to any hardware or software platform. Even though I use a PC for most of my computing and UNIX for other aspects, most of the material is not particular to any type of device or operating system (though I do focus more on networks of smaller computers than larger ones).

撰写本指南的总体目标是创建一个使任何人能够深入了解TCP/IP技术是如何工作的资源。为了做到这一点，有一些特定的目标指导着我的写作：

• 全面性。跟大多数作者一样，写作覆盖一个大的主题，我希望我的TCP/IP指南对TCP/IP的介绍是全面的。当然，不存在一个单一的文件就可以涵盖一切，所以我不得不限制写作素材的范围。然而，我觉得，在涉及TCP/IP方面，本书比其他任何一本书或资源更全面。
• 容易理解。创建一个全面的学习资源很重要，但我觉得更重要的是容易理解。在过去的几年中，我有机会回顾了数百本有关网络的书籍、指南、网站和论文。我发现，尽管大多数文献的质量普遍都很高，但有太多的人使用未经解释的技术术语，或假定读者对网络概念和技术有广泛的了解。我非常努力地工作，以确保我的描述(即使是非常复杂的概念)，让几乎每一个学习网络的读者都能够理解。
• 基本原理。了解TCP/IP协议集中的每一个协议的功能固然重要。然而，要真正理解复杂的材料，人们还需要知其然和知其所以然。在写这个材料的时候，我总是试图在解释TCP/IP是什么的时候讲解为什么。我已经预测到一些问题并给出了答案，我相信这些问题通常会出现在学习TCP/IP技术的人的脑海之中。
• 配图。俗话说，一张图片胜过千言万语。有很多的概念，再多的话也未必能解释清楚，但是用一个简单的例子就可以了。因此，我花了好几个月创作了300多张全彩色图表用来作为TCP/IP指南中的书面材料的补充。在这些图表中，一些比较简单，另一些则不那么简单！
• 用户友好。我故意打破了传统书籍写作的许多规则，用一种会话式的、第一人称的风格写作，而且在适当的时候加入些许幽默。我的目的是让你在阅读那些技术上理解起来相当困难的材料的时候有一种回家的感觉。希望你能把我当作一个坐在你的电脑旁给解释TCP/IP是如何工作的朋友，而不是一个在讲坛上向你进行空洞说教的教授。
• 组织结构。许多网络书籍都是由一个接一个地列出几十个主题，让读者想知道所有东西是如何组合在一起的。当我开始写这个指南时，我花了好几个星期来组织它的结构，结果是列出了一个层次结构，该结构清楚地表明了主体之间是如何相互关联的。我也仔细地列出了每一部分，以确保它以一种合情合理的方式对其主题进行讨论。
• 细节分层。我意识到一些阅读TCP/IP指南的人可能只想快速地知道TCP/IP组成协议对应的操作，而其他人想了解所有事情是如何工作的以及所有的细微差别。我提供了大多数读者想了解的全部细节，同时还在每一部分提供一个概述，以对各个技术进行总结从而方便快速地阅读。这给你一个选择，愿意略读就略读，愿意"深潜"就"深潜"。
• 平台无关。我尽可能地避免在任何硬件或软件平台上描述TCP/IP。尽管我在PC机上进行在大多数计算，也使用UNIX，但大多数的材料与任何类型的设备或操作系统都不相关(虽然我更关注小型计算机网络）。

How successful was I in achieving these goals? I'd like to think I did a pretty good job, but ultimately, you will be the judge!

我的这些小目标是否成功实现了呢？我觉得我干得不错，但是，读者您才是最终的评判员！