Customer Reviews

Beginning HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best written technical books that I've read lately. If you've wanted to know, "how do I make a web page from scratch?" this book will explain how, step by step. I'm already comfortable with most aspects of HTML, so I'm moving on to the more interesting areas: CSS and JavaScript. One of of my frustrations with CSS is remembering what properties to use, and this book has nice tables, examples, and exercises on this topic. This is almost like a textbook, or a self-help book. You don't need to be an absolute beginner to appreciate the organization of this book! I'm also interested in reading about the various JavaScript libraries that are popular today, including YUI and scriptaculous, which are discussed briefly. I don't really have anything that I'd like to see changed about this book. It's really up to the reader to decide what area to learn about next.

Overall, I really like this book. It's very practical and shows useful applications for each new thing taught. And the lessons do build on each other and flow together well. The exercises are helpful as well.

My problem comes from the "Example Cafe" website, which is the website you build and add to throughout the book. The code examples found on the publisher's website seem like they were made out of sync with the the book itself. A lot of examples include code never explained or shown before, code that's just plain wrong as well as things implemented but never requested from the website. I don't copy and paste, so these errors aggravate me. I almost spend as much time breaking down the example code and figuring out where the editors messed up as I am actually implementing features into my practice site. It's annoying and frustrating.

As a reference, very well structured and explained. As an exercise resource, aggravating and not worth using.

This is a reasonably good text that balances a course of instruction with reference material that might be used in implementing the information the book presents. The text is comprehensive in that it provides, as promised, a solid introduction to HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript -- all of that is quite good.

There is, however, one huge and frustrating drawback. Either in the book or in the code that can be downloaded in tandem with the text, there are just too many careless errors and discrepancies. One can almost count on any exercise or example's having at least one misleading mistake. Many errors are just obvious looking at material on the printed page (as just typical examples: Why would there be two "TO:" boxes on an e-mail form? see page 212; why isn't there a "<" to start the first line of code on page 233?).

This is a text that has been through a number of editions; in light of that legacy, to find so many errata in a text for beginners is frustrating. It does not speak well of the editing precisions one would think a publisher seemingly as authoritative as Wrox would exercise.

I knew absolutely nothing about HTML or CSS when I started reading this book. Everything was written in a clear, easy to understand format. Each element was broken down and thoroughly explained. As a result, I am steadily gaining confidence in website design. I haven't started reading the JavaScript section yet, but if it's anything like the chapters before it, I'm sure I'll be able to learn it in no time.

This book is a great referance tool on XHTML, however I felt that the chapters on frames, CSS and Javascript were weaker than the rest of the book. The book reads like a reference book rather than an instructional guide and some people may find this off putting. For them I would recommand that they read Ian Lloydd's book first, and then come back to this one to fill in the gaps. All in all I am please with this book.

This book teaches you what you are suppose to know about HTML/XHTML. It goes over all the basic/fundamentals of HTML and XHTML, including the rules and properties of CSS. It gives you an insight on JavaScript but does not go to far into it. It's very beginner friendly and throughout the book you build a website called "example cafe" which is very basic at first -- you eventually finish it around Chapter 7 after learning the CSS properties/rules. So if you don't know any languages, this is a book where you should start since the author does not assume you know anything about programming languages or scripting. The book also good for referencing with a pretty big appendix. My only complaint is that the author's source code for the examples and exercises were not up to sync witch what he lays out in the book. He also occasionally leaves out the XML tags which an X/HTML developer should get used to writing, although he does say they are important, he leaves them out in his examples but his source code contains these tags -- this is just minor confusion. Overall this book was well worth it for what you pay for it.

(NOTE: This book does NOT go over HTML5 or CSS3)

The best book ever to give you a good information in web developing.. buy it and you will never lose
thanks to the author.

I was looking for a book to clearly illustrate the foundations of XHTML and CSS. This works. The author includes an great balance of rules and examples, going back and forth between HTML and CSS when needed. The book is not zany and clever with lots of cartoony crap all over it like the "Dummies" books, which is actually really nice- just good information, clearly presented and well organized. Yes, it is an introduction so it does not include everything in a lot of depth. But, once you have a good foundation and understand the logic, everything else can be found on-line anyway. It is a waste to try to put all the nuances in a book. Glad I got it, though not that excited about paying full price for it at a bookstore...