This is a newbie question (that maby should have been posted in the "For Beginners" section): Berkley Socket Programming - is that a platform independent network API? And if so - does the book "MUD Game Programming" do the programming in Winsock or Berkley Sockets? Doesnt explicitly say in TOC here: http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?group=Game%20Development&isbn=1%2D59200%2D090%2D8

The Berkley Sockets API is not platform independent. However, most major networking APIs are based on sockets programming (ex: Winsock, the Windows Socket API), so migrating code from one API to another is usually relatively painless, as long as you attempt to use common functionality. For example, it''s relatively easy to move from posix sockets to Winsock, as Winsock implements almost every posix socket function. Moving from Winsock using WSAAsyncSelect() to posix sockets can be quite annoying, as there is nothing even close to WSAAsyncSelect() in posix.

The table of contents of that book implies that it uses both Winsock and Berkeley sockets (considering the title of chapter 2). Judging by the title of chapter 5, it seems like it uses a library layer to given a degree of platform independence in network programming.

So, for instance, learning Winsock doesnt paint you into the Windows corner as much as do learning DirectX? Sounds like a good investment learning it then.

Thanks