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Comment by NukedOne | Hacker News Reader

No. Why would I? I was merely commenting on the "best textbook out there to learn modern networking."

I consider the TOC deeper research than the blurb on site. Just pointing out it doesn't mention the book is about the physical layer at all - a probable explanation for why you didn't find it in the TOC.

To clarify, the praiseful comment made me curious and I wanted to know what's so good about the book, so I went through the Table of Contents and noticed that the physical layer is missing. I was just trying to point out that this layer is equally important as others for someone looking to gain a good grasp of networking.

> I was just trying to point out that this layer is equally important as others for someone looking to gain a good grasp of networking.

I don't agree. For those onboarding onto the subject, their mental model will be focused around the higher level details implemented around the application layer. The physical layer only starts to become remotely relevant once you start to delve onto very specialized topics.

Agreed. The physical layer really is a whole different game. I know it exists and I know various limitations of different mediums, but once you get into that low level physics and radio math you are basically stepping out of computer science at that point.

I highly doubt even 1% of engineers could describe how WiFi works on the radio / physical level let alone anything about the variosu ways we make wires and light works.

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