Appendix

Reading Appendix A of the textbook did not introduce me to much new information that I was not previously aware of. High school computer classes, as well as my hobbies of hosting Minecraft servers and learning to program videogames, already lent me much of the information that was reviewed in this Appendix. Nevertheless, the Appendix served as a nice memory-refresher, and prepared me for the – somewhat ambiguous – quiz questions we were given on Monday. 

 

To elaborate on my claim that my previous experiences already gave me the information that the Appendix discussed, I will explain how each of the three factors I mentioned contributed to my knowledge of The Internet. Learning how to host a Minecraft Server already taught me on client/server networks, LANs, ethernet, and IP addresses. Previous High School and Summer courses taught me DNS, ICANN, DARPA, FTP, intra/extranets, and hypertext. Finally, my programming experience lent me knowledge on the importance and impact of bandwidth, latency, and packets. 

 

I will note, however, that the Appendix did expand on my knowledge of circuit and package switching. I also learned of some other networks that existed during the seventies and eighties.