Internet & World Wide Web How to Program (1st Edition) [Paperback]

Harvey M. Deitel (Author), Paul J. Deitel (Author), T. R. Nieto (Author)

Book Description

Series: How to Program | Publication Date: December 17, 1999

Explains how to program multitiered, client/ server, database-intensive, Web applications. Key topics include client-side and server-side scripting objects, HTML, JavaScript, ActiveX controls and graphics, and Audio, video, speech. Softcover. CD-ROM included.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A solid jack-of-all-trades reference, this book-and-browser package comes straight from the school of college textbooks--and your outlook will determine whether it's for you. If you find helpful the terse writing, heavy reliance on spot illustrations, and strict end-of-chapter exercises that characterize textbooks, this package will be invaluable to you--it provides a lot of content, and is a perfect set for the corporate trainer or teacher. But, if you're looking for a chatty style, in-depth coverage on specific topics, or lots of asides on how things work in the real world, you might want to look elsewhere.

The book itself proceeds in a very linear fashion, and evidently has been written in a course style--starting with the basics, and each chapter building on the last. In this, it works nicely. It starts off with simple HTML and table structures, and moves into the simplest of scripting languages (JavaScript, natch)--spending five chapters and various exercises to teach the reader the basics of programming and programming techniques. Variables, arrays, input methodologies, functions, and simple object-oriented concepts all are covered clearly and concisely in various small programs. After JavaScript has been explained thoroughly, the book moves on to the more global performance-enhancing suite of using "Dynamic HTML"; then, it covers multimedia, and ends up on the heavy-hitting topics of client-side scripting, databases, and e-commerce. When you finish, you'll have under your belt an industrial-strength overview and understanding of Web programming issues.

Every chapter has the same strength and weakness; each subtopic is covered meticulously with a brief, well-written exercise--but only one. If that particular exercise doesn't make it clear to you (because the book uses each chapter as a stepping stone to a more advanced topic), you could misunderstand large sections of the rest of the book--rather like missing a class in the middle of a calculus course. Thankfully, Deitel's eye for solid examples and good writing keeps the danger of this disaster to a minimum, but the singleton nature of the samples means that you might have to do a lot of outside exercises for maximum reinforcement and retention.

There are other subtle difficulties, too. For one thing, the book has in-depth coverage of Microsoft Visual InterDev in a chapter, but does not provide a trial copy of InterDev--mentioning, in an embarrassed side note, that InterDev only comes with the classroom edition. The end-of-chapter exercises are left without answers--obviously to be given later in the instructor's manual, and leaving you to research whether you were right or not. Above all, this book definitely is aimed at the programmer, and not the designer or global Web master. Scant coverage is given to such critical design-worthy topics as page size, differences between GIF and JPEG, differences in browser interpretation, and advanced use of tables to provide complex graphical interfaces. If you want extremely functional pages, this is the place to go--but you'll need another book to help you design beautiful and quick-loading pages.

The CD-ROM is somewhat disappointing; it's mostly an expanded version of the book, transported to HTML format. You'll find code samples, which are always helpful, but no examples of live Web pages that have the code already programmed in. The questions in the end-of-chapter live examinations are ridiculously easy ("Primary key fields may not contain duplicate values: T/F"). There's a lot of content here, and this CD-ROM would be ideal for business and mass-training purposes--where an easily portable and wide-ranging format is necessary--but it might be a bit of a disappointment for the individual user.

In short, this is a fine package for trainers, teachers, and individuals who like classroom learning. It presents the core topics well, will give you a deep understanding of the issues, and is as comprehensive a book as you could hope for--given that it covers such an incredibly wide range of topics. --William Steinmetz --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Because of competing standards, browsers, and platforms, the web is basically a chaotic mess, making it difficult for web masters to design anything. Harvey and Paul Deitel and T.R. Nieto attempt to put all the information a web designer needs in one place in a moderately organized fashion. They cover everything: paint programs, html, dhtml, JavaScript, cascading style sheets, Perl, CGI, Apache, e-commerce, animation, and much more. The authors definitely favor a coding (Microsoft) approach over a graphic design (Mac-based) method. More a textbook for a two-term introduction to web programming than an in-depth study of any single aspect of web programming, this book is a good starting point, but a beginner will learn more with a good teacher as a guide. An advanced programmer will also find it useful as an excellent ready-reference. Recommended for all libraries.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1157 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (December 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130161438
• ISBN-13: 978-0130161437
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,955,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One more diamond from the Deitel family, February 9, 2000

By 

Michael Regan (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Internet & World Wide Web How to Program (1st Edition) (Paperback)

I started using the Deitel books while taking C and C++ courses in college. Since then, I followed with Java, Visual Basic, and now this latest gem, Internet & World Wide Web. As always, the example listings are wonderfully documented and the text is very clear. The accompanying CD like those with their other books are of exceptional quality. That is, unlike many other book CDs, these will work in your world on your machine. Until I can take one of their classes, the book will be the best source of hands-on listings, examples and exercises to learn how to program web applications. Like their other books, there are helpful 'tips' and 'common programming errors' sections that bring the objective of writing functional well-written programs into sharp focus.

This Internet book has excellent working listings to demonstrate and explain ActiveX, SQL, ADO, Perl and e-Commerce. The accompanying CD really does have MUCH more.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference book for Web Developers, July 31, 2000

By 

"andrejohnson75" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Internet & World Wide Web How to Program (1st Edition) (Paperback)

My introduction to this book was as a Information Technology Student at DeVry Institute of Technology in Dallas, Texas. Seeing that there is so much information simply to learn about web development (e.g., ASP, HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript), I found this book an excellent resource for both the novice as well as the experienced developer. I feel this book provides a "no nosense approach" to programming. It focuses on many of the important aspects of coding in several languages, and provides a very detailed instruction to many complicated areas of web development. I think this book could have provided a lot more examples, which are found in the complete CD/Book series package. However, for the most part, this book is well worth its asking price. And after reading many books on web development, this book provides a general overview of many areas which are crucial for those interested in web page construction.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Differing Versions of the CDRom Included With Book, September 7, 2000

By 

Karen O. Castleman (Tampa, Fl United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Internet & World Wide Web How to Program (1st Edition) (Paperback)

The book is comprehensive and for the most part well organized. However, not disclosed on the Deitel Web Site, but only buried in the book, is the fact that Microsoft's Visual InterDev 6.0, Profession Edition is included only "to student editions of this book intended for academic use." In the book Deitel says, "Other readers...will need to purchase it separately." I am a graduate student and purchased the book for academic use in a graduate Instuctional Technology course. But because I did not learn of the above information until I had purchased the book from Amazon.com and started to read it, I do no have Visual InterDev 6.0 which is necessary for my course. I guess I needed to buy the book at the University Book Store to qualify. Copies provided to Amazon.com do not quality. I contacted Deitel, explained my problem, and provided them with coourse documentation, professor's name and email, etc., but they refused to exchange CD"s. I believe this information should be available to students before they buy the book.