4 ms·

I think you need to know your audience and cater to them, trying to explain everything just ends in a book. L2 is especially googleable.

pfarrell 6y ago
This is a good point. You have to have some assumptions of what your audience brings. I'm aware there are levels of information in an IP packet, but I don't know them offhand. If I have to google something on the first sentence in a high level overview, then I'm likely not going to read the piece and the author has lost me as a reader. Maybe I'm not the target audience, though I was interested. I'm providing that as feedback for the origial author since the piece mentions that's it's still a work in progress.
deleted 6y ago
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hinkley 6y ago
To be fair, L2 could be Layer 2 or Level 2 (cache) and it might be a crapshoot what you get. You might get confused trying to answer your own questions. Discoverability lives in the space between overexplaining and underexplaining.
- wruza 6y ago
  One can just add switch, router, network, etc to the query until it works. Supposedly they'll all work. Weak google fu means no info today, and if OP and the author are not the same person, then the latter may not even have a clue that it was posted on hn, where such high standards apply. If someone brought an electronics forum wiki post, should one expect every TLA¹ to be explained there too? ¹ Three Letter Acronym/Abbreviation
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  In a networking discussion, L2 always means Layer 2. If the subject of caching came up the author would say "I'm talking about L2 cache here." It's like TTL. It means one thing in a networking context but something totally different in a digital logic context. But granted, somebody with no networking background wouldn't necessarily know that.
monadic2 6y ago
Surely they would be aware the audience would know what ethernet is. To me, L2 refers to the level 2 cpu cache.
samatman 6y ago
If only we were using a technology where you could turn the word "L2"[0] into a link to a page explaining what it means. Then the author wouldn't have to, and we wouldn't need to use a search engine! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model#Layer_2:_Data_Link_Layer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model#Layer_2:_Data_Link_L...
inopinatus 6y ago
For me, that book was W. Richard Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated, volumes 1 & 2 particularly.

pfarrell 6y ago

This is a good point. You have to have some assumptions of what your audience brings. I'm aware there are levels of information in an IP packet, but I don't know them offhand. If I have to google something on the first sentence in a high level overview, then I'm likely not going to read the piece and the author has lost me as a reader. Maybe I'm not the target audience, though I was interested. I'm providing that as feedback for the origial author since the piece mentions that's it's still a work in progress.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hinkley 6y ago

To be fair, L2 could be Layer 2 or Level 2 (cache) and it might be a crapshoot what you get. You might get confused trying to answer your own questions. Discoverability lives in the space between overexplaining and underexplaining.

wruza 6y ago
One can just add switch, router, network, etc to the query until it works. Supposedly they'll all work. Weak google fu means no info today, and if OP and the author are not the same person, then the latter may not even have a clue that it was posted on hn, where such high standards apply. If someone brought an electronics forum wiki post, should one expect every TLA¹ to be explained there too? ¹ Three Letter Acronym/Abbreviation
dreamcompiler 6y ago
In a networking discussion, L2 always means Layer 2. If the subject of caching came up the author would say "I'm talking about L2 cache here." It's like TTL. It means one thing in a networking context but something totally different in a digital logic context. But granted, somebody with no networking background wouldn't necessarily know that.

monadic2 6y ago

Surely they would be aware the audience would know what ethernet is. To me, L2 refers to the level 2 cpu cache.

samatman 6y ago

If only we were using a technology where you could turn the word "L2"[0] into a link to a page explaining what it means. Then the author wouldn't have to, and we wouldn't need to use a search engine! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model#Layer_2:_Data_Link_Layer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model#Layer_2:_Data_Link_L...

inopinatus 6y ago

For me, that book was W. Richard Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated, volumes 1 & 2 particularly.