University of Waterloo cs456 and cs454 question

[sceptile24]

Hello, I want to take CS454 (Distributed Systems) in a future term and although CS456 (Computer Networks) is not a prerequisite they say that it is useful to be familiar with the contents of that course. Has anybody taken CS454 without having previously taken CS456 and found that the it is not so hard to learn on your own the material from cs456 that is useful for 454? Or, has any body taken 456 and then 454 and found that the material in 456 is really vital to understand 454? Should I take 456 before 454?

I would also like to hear your opinions about those two courses in general, are they easy? too hard? Is there a programming component? Are they courses that every CS major should take? Anything would be helpful.

Thanks