Customer Reviews

Drag `n' Drop CGI: Enhance Your Web Site Without Programming

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

 

 

I am a technical writer and webmaster and it's my job to help people in our department with web pages and cgi scripts. Many of them have asked for a recommendation on what book would be helpful. I reviewed this book for that purpose and was amazed at how poorly written it is!! They are obviously NOT writers and honestly must have thrown this together over a weekend. Unless you already know what they're talking about,this will make matters worse. And if you already know what they're talking about, you don't need it. So far, my favorite intro book is "Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web" by Elizabeth Castro. Several on our staff are now using it and finding it very helpful, straightforward, not too much detail...etc.

Drag and Drop CGI? Sounds too good to be true? Well, it IS true! An excellent book that delivers what its subtitle promises. If you're looking to enhance your website with form validation, form processing, search engines, visitor counters and even an online store (amongst other goodies) then this is the book for you.

The book assumes moderate computer skills on the part of the reader but is in no way overly technical. In addition, the authors provide step by step support through each script, how each script works and how you might implement each script in the 'real-world'.

What makes Drag and Drop CGI particularly commendable is that it delivers on its promise: nine fully-operational, fully-tested, robust, commercial-quality scripts (including the aforementioned on-line store) that solve real-world problems and not just 'demos', 'teasers' or 'examples' masquerading as fully functional code. For this reason alone, it's worth making room on your bookshelf for this book.

Other features of the book worthy of note include: numerous, accessible introductions to technical concepts; a chapter to help you clarify your site's design, purpose and target audience; and introductory guides to Perl and UNIX for those readers who wish to advance to the 'next level'.

All this, written in a clear, humorous and supportive style. Not bad... Not bad at all.

"Drag 'N' Drop CGI" by Bob Weil and Chris Baron is probably the best and most practical intro book to CGI I have read. After providing a brief uncomplicated understanding of the purpose of cgi, the authors literally hold your hand as you install your first CGI script using ftp and Telnet. The authors provide you with a questionnaire you can give to your ISP requesting all the info you need to install a script. I know in the theoretical world this info should be on the site or provided by the Tech when you sign on, but I went through a lot of difficulty trying to install my first script. Newbies who do not know any better may think they are doing something wrong. (I did not realize my ISP did not provide the "complete" info needed as I struggled to install a script) With the book in my hand, it was reassuring to test my skills and cautiously tinker with a few of the scripts provided on CD. Bottom line: While I had "perused" at least five other CGI/Perl books and browsed half a dozen CGI sites, I understood and accomplished more -- faster with the aide of this book. Highly Recommend

This book is a great resource for the total novice in CGI programming. It has a couple good scripts, but if you actually want to learn how to write CGI yourself, this isn't the right book for you.

I bought this because I wanted to learn some CGI quickly; not always a good approach to learning, but certainly the approach taken by this book. It started well with some simple explanations and humorous asides. Then I began to try some examples - OUCH! Errors all over the place. I tried to find their website listed in the book - not there. (I see they've included it above). After many blind guesses, I managed to find their website. I e-mailed them - no reply at all. After working on the problems more, I realized that the code on the CD was in UNIX text, making it problematic on my Windows system. Since then I figured out that I could use an editing program that could handle UNIX text. If this book is for newbies, it's silly to assume that everyone will be using a UNIX system to write code. Oops, guess they forgot to test on other platforms. I'm a programmer and very experienced PC user; God help users with less technical knowledge. I managed to find out what I needed much better by using O'Reilly books and looking at sites like perl.com.

Not for a newbie to the web. This book took me from static html web pages to dynamic cgi web pages with secure on line shopping. Well worth the money I spent, plus all the scripts on the CD are a big bonus. Plain, well written english, with just enough tech stuff to get me by and help me ask right questions when I needed tech support from my server. Thanks to Amazon for the great next day service!

This was the third book I bought to help me get started with CGI stuff. It was not very helpful, when I started learning. I was using it in an online class. Since that early learning experience, I forced myself to figure out cgi instalation. I now have many scripts on my site. Recently I wanted a hidden counter, and I remembered there was one in this book. I went back to the book and tried to install it. And what a mess. There is no coordination between the CD and the book. The book has no set outline, for configuration. And there are errors that will make you think your an idiot. Do your self a favor and just start downloading scripts from the web and learning the difference between a path on your server and a path with a URL in the browser. Maybe another book will help, but stay away from this one, oh and I'll but this one up for auction, here at amazon, and good luck!

I bought this book for an online course. If I were trying to use it on my own, without input from other people in the course, I don't think I'd be able to use it. The examples vary from the explanations in the book; for example, in Chapter 5, Figure 5.3 tells you, when editing the $cntfile line of the configuration block of the vcount.cgi script, to "Be sure to enclose all of this in *single* quotation marks...." However, the example on the CD has everything in that line in *double* quotation marks. I'm not a programmer, and don't know whether this actually makes a difference (the script tests out fine in Telnet, but I have yet to make it work on a page), but this isn't the first discrepancy I've found in the examples, and it's very confusing.

Also (and this is a minor thing), the plastic CD pocket in the back of the book was glued in backwards so I had to cut the CD out of it with a razor blade. Altogether, I'm finding this book to be more of an annoyance than it's worth.

I purchased the book for a CGI class I had taken - the code that it includes does definitely work, and the book is well written. However, if you want to learn anything about actually writing CGI code, this will not help at all. It includes multiple scrips that you can modify, and teaches how to modify, but doesn't say anything on how it works or how to re-create any of the processes in the scripts. For those who don't know how to write CGI, and don't want to learn, this is great...but for those who want to learn how to create the code, this book's not for you.

When you know Html quite well, have some experience with Perl (..is there other web scripting that's got the same 'write once, run everywhere..') this script offers everything for web-shops. It's fast and flexible. You can configure it anyway you want....

BTW Implementing secure webshops is NOT 'the starting point for newbies' ... I think.