Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 15:24:03 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Zen and the Art of the Internet" by Kehoe BKZENINT.RVW 940216 Prentice-Hall, Inc. 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 or 11711 N. College Ave. Carmel, IN 46032-9903 or 201 W. 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN 46290 or 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY 10023 800-428-5331 or Market Cross House Cooper Street Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1EB England phyllis@prenhall.com - Phyllis Eve Bregman Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com Pat Carol 317-581-3743 "Zen and the Art of the Internet", Kehoe, 1994, 0-13-083033-X brendan@zen.org Kehoe starts out by quoting E.B. White's exhortation to students of English usage from "The Elements of Style" with, "Get the *little* book! Get the *little* book! Get the *little* book!" Sound advice. It applies equally to those just starting out on the Internet. "Zen" is a mere pocketbook in comparison to some of the other telephone directory-sized guides, but a pocket guide is usually what is needed. Kehoe has done a marvelous job of presenting the essentials, plus a few interesting tidbits, while holding off from reproducing reams of resources from those already available on the net, itself. "Zen" is, itself, one of the very widely known and highly regarded resources on the net. It was also the first introductory guide to the Internet published in popular book form. Therefore, I am rather shocked to note that this third edition, copyright 1994, proudly boasts of over 50,000 copies sold. I'd be delighted to do that well as an author, but it indicates that the book is nowhere near as well-known in the general populace as it deserves. I should, having given these accolades, admit to a decided bias: this is my type of book. Those who are not happy with concepts and only wish to know what button to press may find the book frustrating. Mail, ftp, news, telnet and a number of other tools are covered, but Kehoe does not reproduce, wholesale, help screens from elm and tin. Since the specific programs you will use all have help features, Kehoe evidently does not feel the need to waste paper explaining how to use a program that you may not, indeed, need to use. I agree, and it is refreshing to see at least one Internet guide which gives clear explanations of the essence of the Internet tools without having to fill space with specifics which you will be able to get from the programs themselves. (In response to the first draft of this review, Kehoe stated that Internet providers should be also providing documentation for any system specific features. He also mused on the bewilderment newcomers must feel when confronted with a shelf full of 400 to 800 page guides for a system whose basics are supposedly fairly simple. Again I concur.) Probably for the same reason, Kehoe does not reproduce an annotated, or even expurgated, .newsrc file or "list of lists." Some may say that this is a lack on the part of the book and that it is less interesting for not providing such a directory. These resources are, however, readily accessible on the net (Kehoe tells you where to find them) and cannot, in book form, be anything more than an outdated and possibly misleading first indicator. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the large guides with all of their lengthy references. As the same time, most newcomers will want a gentler, smaller introduction, rather than being dumped into a vat of data. For those to whom the sound of few pages flipping is as music, this is definitely your book. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKZENINT.RVW 940216. Permission is granted to redistribute in TELECOM Digest and associated mailing lists/ news groups. Postscriptum: sadly, Brendan Kehoe was recently involved in a major traffic accident. In one of the network ironies, the flood of email condolences to his personal mailbox had created something of a problem for friends trying to help out. Mid-January, however, saw a dramatic improvement, and when I sent him the draft review he was beginning to work on the backlog of mail. (He responded far faster than many authors who have no such excuse :-) By the time you read this it is possible he may be back at work. (He still has a huge backlog, though, so don't expect any immediate answers :-) Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6