For one thing, writing provided a way to share what I had learned about Ethernet during years of designing and operating large campus network systems. It also provided a good excuse to acquire copies of the IEEE standards and spend time becoming more knowledgable about the world's most widely used networking technology.
However, perhaps the major reason I have written on this topic was the problem I had finding accurate books about Ethernet. Over the years I have encountered a number of books about Ethernet that are riddled with a surprising number of technical errors, not to mention various assertions that are flat-out wrong.
Frustrated with the low quality of some of the books I encountered, and wanting accurate and useful information about the whole range of Ethernet technology on my bookshelf, I wrote Practical Networking with Ethernet.
In 1994 I wrote a series of guides to Ethernet, called the Quick Reference Guides. I put these guides up on the Web, where they provide free access to over 150 pages of material, including over 60 figures and tables.
The Guides receive thousands of ``hits'' each day, and thousands of people have used the Guides since they were first published. My reason for publishing the Guides in this way is to give something back to the networking community, in recognition of the many benefits I have received over the years.
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