[UFO Chicago] Ufo Post-Meeting Material

[Jay F Shachter]

Here is the review of "The Story Of Ping" that was discussed briefly
last night during our UFO meeting at The Golden Nugget (the original
can be found at http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VDKZ4X1F992Q):


   Ping! I love that duck!, January 25, 2000
   By 	John E. Fracisco

   PING! The magic duck!

   Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and
   intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking
   utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a
   very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933,
   years (decades!) before the operating system and network
   infrastructure were finalized.

   The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand,
   choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping
   packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks),
   spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed
   boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under
   cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a
   bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the
   internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).

   The title character -- er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders
   around the river before being received by another host (another
   boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually
   returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the
   worse for wear.

   If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this is
   the book. I can't recommend it for most managers, as the technical
   aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts too daunting.

   Problems With This Book

   As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its
   faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the
   command line options well enough, some review of them seems to be in
   order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have expected a
   more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.

   But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place
   on my bookshelf, right between Stevens' Advanced Programming in the
   Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante's seminal work on MS
   Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API
   ("Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its
   depths my sight -- Nothing whatever I discerned therein."), without
   shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress.




			Jay F. Shachter
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				jay at m5.chicago.il.us
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			"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"