Customer Reviews

Internet & World Wide Web How to Program (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I would like to preface this review by explaining that I have never been a great fan of the classic classroom approach to learning programming. I truly believe that educators need to take a real-world approach to teaching this subject, instead of the classic "theoretical" approach. Programming is a craft, and needs to be taught as such, not an abstract concept needing mathematical constructs and proofs to be totally understood. Yes, this stuff is ultimately necessary to know. But it falls on deaf ears to beginning programmers for at least two possible reasons: It fails to provide instant gratification to those students that want to see results, and/or it discourages students who cannot as yet see the "30,000 foot view", and therefore see the definitions out of context.

Which brings me to this book. The authors have apparently "seen the light" and have tried to adapt to the current programming standards by making their introduction to programming revolve around the web and internet environment. This is definitely a step in the right direction. The authors are to be applauded for that and also for their attempt to cover all the standard languages required to develop web applications today, a list which seems to go on forever. Unfortunately, they do it by limiting the scope to the usual pedantic exercises you get in Programming 101 at WhatsaMatta U. Examples: recursion is explained by creating a "factorial" calculator, a Java Script program that calculates a class's grade point average, references to the Fibonacci series. I would figure by now that professors would have gotten away from the penchant of using math examples for programming class, but I guess not. Bottom line: very little useful code. The authors spend much time teaching the classics: Arrays, Lists, sorting algorithms, control structures, and very little time actually using them. I would like it the other way around. I wouldn't spend more time defining a hammer than showing how to use it. Why do programming instructors think that their students need definitions more than they need real world examples?

Deitel and company try to cover alot of material in a rather slim volume. Accolades for that. Anyone looking for their first programming book, look no further....this is as good a place to start as any. You will as a result of buying this book, save lots of money and time. Where can you find an introduction to HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, VBScript, ActiveX, CGI, Perl, Java Servlets and XML all under one cover, not to mention basic programming? However, don't assume you will be creating your first website with this book, either, practically speaking, although it is certainly feasible to create something rudimentary. Buy this book if you always wanted to take Programming 101. Or......buy this book if you realize that the plethora of tools necessary to do web programming is intimidating, or at least, confusing, and you are looking for a guide that will explain how it all fits together, and "where to go from here".

I would agree with Robert Schmaus' comment that the book is geared toward Microsoft products. I taught a web programming course and was upset to find that many of the javascript code samples in book do not work with the Netscape browser. Robert Schmaus is also correct by stating that good web developers should develop for all platforms and browsers.....

It is not a bad book. It is very good for covering a wide number of topics. The book could be improved by putting a chapter on Coldfusion since it covers so much breadth. It could also be improved by being less Microsoft oriented. It does have its flaws, however I will still be using it as the textbook in my course.

Perhaps I'm jaundiced by being somewhat intelligent and having a better than adequate knowledge of programming. I bought this book hoping it would lead to new insights into programming in some popular languages (VBScript, JavaScript, Perl, ASP, etc.) and perhaps show me some tricks I could use in my everyday work.

What I got was a heavy (it's like a very expensive brick), thick, badly organized, poorly laid out doorstop. There is a lot of information in it and that's perhaps its biggest problem. It can't seem to teach simple, straightforward programming, but hops and skips around the various styles of each language, without adequately exploring good, basic programming skills.

Occasionally you glean a useful bit of information, but the examples are confusing often, not explained fully, and fairly dense. You really never have enough time to take in what you've learned before you're off to the next example.

Do yourself a big favor and spend the money you'd have sunk into this atrocious tome and buy a couple of smaller books on your main areas of interest. You'll learn the topics better and you won't get strained muscles from lifting the books.

First of all, my new book broke into three different pieces after sitting on the shelf for three weeks. I only read it at home - no damage due to lugging it back and forth - and had only made it through the first three chapters. It is now in five pieces four months after purchase. If you hope to resell books after reading them, this won't be good for you.

The book tries to be both a beginner's guide and a comprehensive resource at the same time, and it fails at both. It went through the most parts of HTML, and doesn't teach much more than basic formatting with XHTML. It also did an adequate description of -basic- javascript. If you're only interested in learning the basics about web design, this is a good book, but you can find just as good of books for a lot cheaper.

After the html and javascript, it jumps through more advanced programming languages and concepts with very little explanation or code to demonstrate how to use them. I suppose this last half the book is meant as an introduction only, but with how fast it goes through these final sections, you don't really understand XML, flash, etc yet are expected to understand them if you want to grasp the later chapters. They just tried to fit too much into the book.

Since I already knew html but did not have any experience in techniques beyond basic design, I can't say I learned much of anything from this book, except never to buy from Deitel & Deitel again. Stick with a good html book and then buy an advanced internet programming book - this is just an overpriced html book with a bunch of overpaced garbage and "helpful" dead links at the end.

I loved this book, I was looking for a book that explains all the new lingo in the internet and that book did just that... It tells you about almost everything that you might need while programing the net... I am not new to programming, but I am definitely new to scripting and web development... Now if I want to dig further into any subject I know what to search for... A great introduction, simple, clear and comprehensive.

Yes, as other reviewers of the book have pointed out, the book is definitely biased towards Microsoft products. From my point of view, this is fine as it reflects the state of the industry where Microsoft products are dominant. The book does an outstanding job with its breadth of coverage. The book takes the reader from the client side with a discussion of browsers (IE), xhtml, cascasding style sheets, javascript and xml to the server side with a discussion of ASP, VBScript, SQL and a number of scripting languages. The book provides an excellent undergraduate text for learning how all of the client and server pieces fit together. After completing the text, the reader can visit a number of excellent web sites referenced in the text to get an in depth understanding of a particular area.

I used this book to refresh my memory because I hadn't done any web programming in a while. It worked just fine for that, but I don't think I'd have any idea what was going on if I approached this book without prior knowledge. I definitely wouldn't recommend this for absolute beginners. This book is best for people who need review or as a supplement to other books on the subject.

I had to use this book for a class and it was extremely disappointing. Don't expect Deitel to explain the code examples very well, and expect to get confused and led-on.

There is some useful scripting content, but absolutely lousy at teaching anything to someone who doesn't know it already. The book does NOT teach XHTML or XML. You will not read this book and come out with a decent understanding of XHTML or XML at all.

This book is an over-complicated tour of internet scripting. It really should have focused more on Javascript, VBScript and XHTML than anything else.

Deitel & Deitel should learn how to teach, then their books would be really good.

One of very few assigned textbooks which has proven practical both inside and outside of the classroom. The authors provide numerous examples on each topic presented, and the progression of topics within the book is logical. The material is relevant to modern technologies, and this book is actually fun to work through. Where errors or difficultiesd have been found in the book or the enclosed CD, the Deitel website has been all that was necessary to fill the gaps. Hats off to Deitel!

I think "Internet & World Wide Web - How to Program" by Deitel, Deitel & Nieto is an excellent book for learning Internet programming. The book focuses on HTML, JavaScript and DHTML, but also introduces you to databases, VBScript, Active Server Pages (ASP), Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Extensible Markup Language (XML).
Deitel, Deitel & Nieto teach by live-code examples. They first show you the code of an example, then a screen dump of what it will look like on your computer, and finally explain the code. Every chapter includes tips on good programming practices and warnings for common programming errors. Each chapter ends with a summary, look-and-feel observations, performance, testing and debugging tips, Internet links, as well as a set of exercises. You will also find the code of the examples, the Internet links, as well as some software on a CD that comes with the book.
For me as a computer layman, I am a chemist by profession; the book has been extremely useful for learning more about Internet programming. I read the 1st edition of the book, but now a later version is available...