Hello, I'm trying to layout an independent study course in Multiplayer and Network programming for a semester long course. I have been reading these forums and following appropriate links, but what would you sugeest as a series of important topics to focus on for the semester. I was thinking of having one semester long proejct with a couple few multiple-week long courses that contribute to it. Any thoughts and suggestions would eb greatly appreciated.

This should probably fill up a few months:

Information theory (entropy, coding, etc).
Signalling (manchester, chipping, differential, etc).
Basic networking (virtual circuits, streams, datagrams, etc).
Ethernet: specifics (framing, switching, etc).
IP: specifics (IP protocols, IP addressing, ARP, DNS, etc).
TCP: specifics (sliding windows, congestion avoidance, etc).
UDP: specifics (this will be short)
VoIP: background (from SS7, through ISDN, touch on H.320 etc)
VoIP: implementation (lab class with codecs building a voice chat)
Gaming: the MUD model (slow ticks, TCP)
Gaming: the FPS model (fast ticks, UDP)
Gaming: the RTS model (co-simulation, delta messages)
Gaming: the MMO model (visibility filtering, object migration)

If you want to go deeper, you could go into things such as temporal logic, serialization, protocol validation, concurrent programming (threading, synchronization, deadlocks, races), distributed programming (RPC, MPS), etc.

That's a fine approach, too -- it all depends on what you actually want to teach.

Of course, to do well at teaching something, you first have to know it. If you (MaximusCranius) think that you, yourself will learn networking by trying to teach it to others, I'd suggest that statistics say that neither you, nor your pupils, will be very happy when all is said and done.

Just to clarify things, he's trying to set up an independent study course, which means he'll be trying to teach it to himself and get credit for it, not try and teach it to others.

guys these topic sound interesting

i am going to suggest there to some of my professors to enhance you studies