Networking students need an explanation of the internet that can fit in their heads

Systems Approach When my colleague and co-author Bruce Davie delivered his keynote at the SIGCOMM conference, he was asked a thought-provoking question: How should we think about educating the next generation of students about networking, given how different and more complex the internet is today?

It’s a good question because we published the first edition of our book Computer Networks: A Systems Approach in 1996.

Bruce’s answer was pretty much the same as I would have given: Because networks are both complex and constantly changing, what you need to teach students is how to reason about system design, as opposed to being overly fixated on any particular set of layers or technology choices.

With the benefit of a couple of weeks to think about the question, I would double down on that answer, but with the caveat that maybe it is time to rethink how the book is ...