Network communication

[ibisum]

On Mon, 2011-08-15 at 23:32 +0200, Mikael Hansson wrote:
> Any reading recommendations for learning about network (web) communication (protocols, the grand scheme etc.)?


web comms protocols are a thorny subject, but i suggest for this
endeavour you quite literally go straight to the source.

it is not so difficult to maintain a tightly-bound source->bin distro
these days, and i strongly consider the position that approaching it
from a 'nothing running here is not documented' position may prove
fruitful to your efforts.

directly inspect the code for the network layers you are interested
in.  

if its http you want to grok, look at lynx and other standards-compliant
browsers.  build firefox from source, inspect the code for the http
layer, and so on. 

if you have a debian-based VM on your fat mac, you can learn enough in a
few evenings to set it up with complete source on board.  pipe a 'dpk
-k' through some apt-get source xargs magic, and from that point onwards
if you want to know whats in the bins and libs you are running
(remember, in your minimal VM), you simply go directly to source.  

do not read books.