Customer Reviews

The Cgi Book

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

 

 

Mr. Weinman did an excellent job explaining how to program using CGI. I purchased this book in 1996. His book was one the first I had seen that gave examples in C, Perl, Unix Shell, and pseudo code. This was very helpful. The examples were complete and simple. I read the book in one setting. I teach Internet technologies to summer students and I use this book as the core reference. I recommend this book anyone who wishes to begin CGI programming. I am anxiously awaiting the 2nd edition.

This isn't an "incomplete reference". It's not a reference at all, but a set of tutorials. It takes you by the hand, gives you the code, and explains it. If you like to learn by reading code and explanation, this will work for you.

It's nice that it has an explanation for C programmers. Most CGI books write as if C doesn't exist.

When I began to want to learn about CGI, I was a beginner computer user. In late 1997 I had bought my first computer, and was amazed at the World Wide Web, and wanted to learn how to make my own web site(s). I had no programming background other than having learned how to make html documents with the assistance of a good book or two. I wanted to learn how to do Perl and CGI. This book is one of the resources that I am very thankful for having had when I was a beginner. It helped me successfully learn. I find programming to be a challenge, because there are many complexities involved, that are potentially impossible for any author/teacher/documentation writer to forsee. The difficult struggles that I faced when learning the nature of Perl and CGI required a lot of patience for me. I would not have succeeded had I not had this book at that time. This is not the only book that helped me learn. This is one of the best. This is a very good book. It will be useful to me for a long time.

The book has a lot of useful information for the beginner but does not work a complete reference. Too many things just are not covered. It does not cover Location vs Context-type.

Overall, I found this book pretty clear and readable. It does a good job of being understandable to the novice without being too boring for the more experienced. I was also happy to see C well represented. (I may have to learn Perl sooner or later, but this book doesn't force you.) There were a few places where I lost the flow and was left wondering why the author was telling me this.

The cover is fairly plain, but the author makes up for it with a good selection of thought-provoking chapter introduction quotes.

Let's see more of this autho