Customer Reviews

Cascading Style Sheets for Dummies

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

 

 

Full of errors and mistakes -- not only this, but the author is impossible to follow. Had to buy another book on the topic. Stay away.

This book is for people with a reasonable knowledge of HTML 4 who want to learn the basics of Cascading Style Sheets Level 1. Damon Dean wrote "FrontPage 2000 For Dummies: Quick Reference" which was a very useful guide indeed, but this book falls short of that, both in terms of layout and content.

Finding things is hard - as a reference it is pretty hopeless. The tutorials work but they seem to jump around too much. There is a section on how well CSS works with XML, but the author writes his code in CAPITAL letters, which is a no-no in XML. XML and XHTML are case sensitive and must be written in lowercase.

You get a basic grounding in CSS with this book, but I suspect it teaches you some bad habits in the process. For someone who just wishes to add a little bit of style to an otherwise boring website - this will probably suffice.

The writing in this book is muddy, and like another reviewer here, I had to buy a second book to figure out what this book was saying. Since Dummies books are for beginners, a logical order running from easy to difficult should be used. This author is all over the place.

The above is bad enough, then add to this the obvious fact that the book was merely spell-checked but never looked at by an editor (or at least by one who knows grammar and syntax).

The code isn't consistent, and the index has errors.

Don't buy this book. It was obviously pushed out the publisher's door without any attempt to make sure customers get their money's worth. Don't you get ripped off too.

I find that as a book for people new to the topic, this is very confusing. The author jumps all over the place from basic topics to advanced topics and back again in the same chapter. It's hard to follow, and it's hard to figure out how to make CSS work.

The author mingles in many personal remarks which clutters the content substantially, making for a difficult, annoying read. After finding another introductory & intermediate CSS book, & then comparing the two, I can honestly say CSS For Dummies is not organized well, has examples which do not contain vital information or a variety of applications. Based on other books I've owned & read, this book is a poor choice when learning CSS.

Worst of all, there was at least one sample file on the included CD where illegal [chemical] use was cited in the text (see Ch8_fixed.html on the CD - the author writes about "being pissed", and taking [a chemical]). Examples as this clearly make the book an undesirable selection - especially for youth trying to learn CSS. There are simply no reasons for either using offensive language or blatant references to illegal [chemical] use in a book like this.

I'll never buy another "Dummies" book again.

This is absolutely the worst book I have ever attempted to read. I agree with the other reviewers' remarks concerning the author's cutesy feeble attempts at humor. More irritating, however, is his failure to describe adequately the topics on which he touches, and the organization of the book is poor. He tells you part of something in one chapter, and maybe another part of it in another chapter - or not at all. When you apply the instructions he provides, the result often doesn't work, and there is nothing in the book to help you figure out why.

Most of the section headings are extremely stupid puns. Now, I have nothing against puns, mind you, but there is an enormous difference between a smart pun and a stupid one. Damon Dean must not be able to get the smart ones. Yet from a navigational standpoint, using puns in headings is really stupid. The headings are what a reader relies on to locate a topic. Any competent writer knows that. When puns are used in the headings, the reader is at a real loss about the subsumed topic, which completely defeats the purpose of the headings in the first place.

The old adage "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with B. S." no doubt applies here. Generally when a speaker or writer succeeds only in confusing the audience, it's because he doesn't know what he's talking about. I would venture to say that that is the case with Damon Dean.

If this were the only book a person had for learning how to use cascading style sheets, he would give up on the subject altogether before he got halfway through. I, for one, will never waste my money on a "For Dummies" book again!

I've put together a few web sites, and I wanted to expand my knowledge of web technologies. I picked up this book because I'd heard of style sheets, but had no idea what they were. This book is concise, well-written and uses good examples to show how you can improve your site with Cascading Style Sheets. It's a Dummies book, so it's not overwhelming, and that's exactly what I needed.

My goodness, who knew a book on such a complicated subject could be simplified?! I thank the authors for helping ME update and expand on my web site, as well as giving me a laugh or two. This book is RIGHT ON!

While it's true that the Dummies series are supposed to provide a way for the less-proficient to easily get their feet wet, this installment is so annoyingly scripted as to be headache-inducing. The author attempts to lighten the load by injecting humor into the book. But the jokes are bad and they mostly just clutter the author's run-on sentences. The text is so cutesy at times I found myself actually getting fatigued reading it. This book could be simplified and probably cut down by 50 pages if the author would dispense with the "funny" interjections and just focus on the topic.

Of course, it's just a beginner's guide, so the book serves no practical reference purpose after you get through it.