Customer Reviews

SVG Programming: The Graphical Web

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

 

 

Finally an SVG Bible for the Web. I have worked with SVG for just under 2 years and had to learn SVG from the W3C documents and lots of "experiments". I have only reviewed half of this book so far and found a wealth of knowledge on using SVG on the Web. It's examples are solid and well organized.

This book can be used by the novice and the experienced to add the coolest vector graphics to their Website. This book is well balanced for all levels. It has earned a well respected slot next to my computer...

This book is head and shoulders above the Eissenberg book (O'Reilly). Kurt Cagle is a serious developer, and the book shows it, with advanced examples that explore all aspects of programming. It would have been nice to have a .zip file that had all the examples in it, but that's a minor nit.

The fast moving world of most of the smart phone, tablets, and web programming languages and standards leaves this book behind the times, since it was published in 2002. Kurt Cagle is coming out with a new edition, I believe, which should be worth looking at.

SVG is the new web 3.5 and HTML 5 is already collecting dust on the shelves in my library. SVG is a graphical format with allot more power to it than merely making a pretty picture pop up on your pretty little web page. You can do anything in SVG that you can do with HTML 5 and the heavy lifting can be done with CSS 3 and Javascript in SVG documents along with AJAX; etc.

Did I say that HTML 5 was a waste yet?

HTML 5 ROCKS -- emm-hmm, you know that's right... <;b

Browsers don't widely utilize SVG, bluh, bluh, bluh...
Where as every browser on the planet uses HTML slop, I mean 5.

SVG runs in IE9, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome and you can start a page template in a drawing utility that's free of charge called InkScape - imagine that. SVG and Adobe Flex are very similar too so if you know Flex you already know SVG. Buttons, picture, scripting, CSS -- you get it all with SVG and this book will get you started rather quickly.

Everyone's purpose when web designing is to make the experience as memorable as possible for the user/visitor and the easiest way is to cut out the middle-ware/middleman and go straight to the graphical laying everything out from square one. I got me this here book on my Kindle for P.C. readers and I likes very much - it keeps the information fairly simple and easy to follow without leaving you in the wings.

This document is quite good and I have yet to run into any errata. It isn't the great american novel or an exciting adventure as the information is conservative, but that is what a beginner to intermediate instruction is supposed to be -- no fluff.

You want fluff then you want HTML 5, if you want to get something done that's substantial and even carries over into programming (Flex and MXML) and graphic design with tools like InkScape then you're ready for SVG and SVG Programming will get you ready for the bigger picture and design challenges of tomorrow.