27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book AFTER Head First HTML, June 22, 2011
This review is from: Creating a Website: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition) (Paperback)
I'm a newbie. I bought Creating a Website. At about chapter 8 I realized that reading the text, trying to follow the examples but then having to review the solution html was not sticking in my head. The book, to me, is not didactic for a newbie.
So I bought Head First HTML & XHTML with CSS. **AWESOME newbie boodk**
After completing, literally, that whole Head First book, I'm enjoing Creating a Website.
Think of it like HTML & CSS 101 and 102!
If you are a beginner, get the Head First book first.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition, May 24, 2011
This review is from: Creating a Website: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition) (Paperback)
This is the most complete all-in-one manual on website development I have ever read. I was amazed on the amount of information covered in this book, it is almost overwhelming. But, if you stick it out, the end result will be a thorough foundation on website development, community building and, if you wanted to, use your new found knowledge and skills to make money on the web. This book is written, like the title states, in a manual-like style, mixed with step-by-step solutions, simple examples and detailed explanations. And If that wasn't enough already, in the appendix there is a HTML5 reference, and a bunch of website links, grouped by chapters to further extend your knowledge in each subject. I found this book easy to read and understand which is one of the main reasons why I liked it so much. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to start a career in web design or development as it will give them a rock-solid foundation on how things work and fit all together. I would also recommend this book to small business owners, or marketing managers as it will give them a complete understanding of the whole development process so they can intelligently discuss their next web project with prospective designers without their eyes glazing over from lack of knowledge. Finally, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone else, who, maybe just wants to start a blog, or make a webpage, or learn how to use stylesheets or javascript in an already existing website -- this is the book for you because you will accomplish that in just a chapter or two and come out ahead with a great reference manual to boot.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A few problems, but overall good resource, July 11, 2011
This review is from: Creating a Website: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition) (Paperback)
O'Reilly Publishing provided me access to an electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Matthew writes this book as if the reader has no previous experience with coding and even no experience with really understanding how the web works, i.e. how servers render webpages and understanding how a URL works. So if you have lots of experience with these areas then this book probably isn't for you. If however, you've never designed a webpage before or it's been a long time since you've coded this is the book that you want to pick up. The book is divided into five parts:
Welcome to the web--which covers the basics of how the web works, basic HTML, and uploading your webpage to the web
Building better webpages--covers how to use CSS, add images to the website, and creating pages
Connecting with your audiences
Website Frills--learning and using JavaScript for basic tasks
Appendixes
So by the end of the book the reader is able to know how a webpage works, design their own basic one (and know some good practices for doing so), and learning a little bit beyond the basics with JavaScript. The book is also accompanied by a website for future updates and an appendixes with online resources for learning more HTML and websites mentioned in the chapters for finding additional resources.
Having previous experience designing webpages I started reading and reviewing this book as a chance to find a guide that would be a handy reference or a bit of a refresher course when my mind decided to go to sleep. The good: Each chapter is written in a clear, easy to understand format that covers the basics of getting started. The bad: I did have a few problems with some of the information given and how it was worded. First is that it seems jumpy in some places, he wants you to swim before you can walk. For example, he starts off with saying create your first webpage and see how it looks in the browser before really discussing how everything is set up. I get that he wants to provide an example, but I would have told them to take a look at a simple webpage and pointed out the elements to the page first.
He also doesn't really cover some of the basic programs well, such as FTP applications and text editors. With FTP programs he just hopes that you're web provider lets you do it via the browser. For text editors he only highlights three free programs and misses some really popular ones, such as TextWrangler, textpad+++, or NetBeans. He also seemed to indicate that the pay ones were better if you were doing more complicated things, which just isn't quite true. It was just a bit disappointing to me perhaps, because I come with experience with webdesign. That being said for someone that is a complete novice at webdesign the book does cover the basics well so that anyway, even a person that has just started using a computer the week before, could pick up the book and begin building a webpage.
Even though it does have a few problems, it's still a good basic book for the beginner or a good refresher for someone that hasn't done webpage design in a while. If you're looking to get into depth with CSS or JavaScript I would recommend one of O'Reilly's other books, such as CSS: The Definitive Guide or Head First JavaScript.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
