Why read Tanenbaum?

Question

Books

Friends, does it make sense to read Tanenbaum Computer networks?
I opened it, read it and closed it.
This is either a bunch of water, or an abstraction of such a level that I am not able to simply understand it.
Can these books be put into practice?
It is the topic of network programming that interests me.
I want to understand what exactly lies behind the implementation of sockets, using the example of Linux OS.
To do this, I opened Tanenbaum, but even ideas how to translate his words into code - no.
There was an idea to understand what lies behind the sockets, to read the source code of Linux, but to understand the algorithms, without knowledge of network technologies, is a stupid idea.
It turns out such an endless cycle.
The question is actually that everyone advises reading Tanenbaum's fundamental work on networks, but is it possible to take something out of this fundamental work in practice?
And how to do it?

Answer 1

Tanenbaum is awesome, I think. A book for understanding why networks are designed this way and not otherwise. But not for those who want to sit down and write code or study wireshark logs. Water, perhaps, only in the first chapter, and then it is very interesting:
Chapter 2. Physical level. There is a piece of cable. We are thinking about how to send information through it. How to miss even more? We wind up duplex, frequency division, etc. Similarly with an overhead line.
Chapter 3. Link layer. We learned to transmit, now we are correcting transmission errors.
Chapter 4. How can we now connect this cable to several computers so that they do not conflict?
Chapter 5. Network layer. And now all over the country?
Etc. An understanding of this or that realization, prerequisites and reasons for the appearance comes.

Answer 2

For network programming, read Stevens "Unix. Network Application Development" 2007. The book is not new, but I have not seen a better description of network programming.

Answer 3

But I have not read Tanenbaum. Networks can be studied without it, for example,
"Computer networks. Principles, technologies, protocols. A textbook for universities", Olifer & Olifer.