How to Read My Book

At the beginning, there was frustration.

First of all, I would like to thanks everyone for purchasing the NS2 book. The book was motivated by my frustration when I learned NS2 a long time ago. I guess everyone would at one time share that frustration with me. NS2 is a great tool. It has numerous modules.
Unfortunately, it does not have enough good documentation. With that, I began writing the book in order to help you guys get started with NS2. I appreciate everyone coming to this website, and every comment that you have on the book. Again, thank you.




Before you begin ...

If you are new to NS2, please read [ this post ]. It provides you with things you should know before learning NS2. After reading the post, you should know that you have a lot of work to do.
I hope the book will help you learning NS2 properly. The book will tell you the main NS2 components, where and how those component are coded, and how they are related. Unfortunately, it does not cover every single modules in NS2. NS2 is just too big to fit in one book!

The most effective way to learn NS2.

At first, you might be discouraged by the size of the book. It's more than 400 pages: A lot of reading ,isn't it? So, I am giving you a guideline of how to read the book, and learn NS2 quickly.

Again, in the [ previous post ], I gave the key steps to learn NS2. I am now mapping those steps to relevant chapters in the book:

• Step 1 [Chapter 5 and 7]: Learn how NS2 pass packets from one object to another (e.g., from a Node to a SimpleLink). In fact, these two chapters are the most essential one. If you can understand this, I would say you are in a good shape. You've learn most of NS2 fundamentals. Note that, in the process, you might have to visit chapters 3 and 4 for better understanding.
• Step 2 [Chapter 3]: Learn how to bind C++ and OTcl. In particular, learn how to pass/invoke variables/methods of both the domain.
• Step 3 [Chapter 14]: Learn the module you are interested in. You have your own modules right? So try it. It's time to experiment. If you still don't have your own modules. I have two examples in chapter 14.
• Step 4 [Chapter 2]: Modify, include, and build. After you are done with the code, you might want to read chapter 2 or [ this post ] to see how to include your module into NS2.

Now go back to work. You have a lot to do right?