Customer Reviews

Web Programming: Building Internet Applications

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

 

 

I used this book for a web development course at university. I soon began to form quite a rile hatred of this book. It became obvious to me that what I was reading should never have made it past the manuscript stage. It really is that bad. There are many reasons that this book is a real stiker, and I will outline some of the points below.

1) The author injects himself too much into the book, which soon becomes irratating. He makes silly un-worthhwhile remarks in the footnotes, which aren't used to expand on a point, but rather as a method for the author to insert gleeful comments, ultimately wasting the readers time.

2) inconsistency in code written. In some sections, the author will have written a script (for instance) <javascript=something> in some places and <javascript="something"> in others.

3) Non-sensical code examples. The code examples shown look purely academic and have no resemblence to any real world use. They are also hard to follow at times. They are certainly not inyuitive at all. This is the case with almost all the Javascript examples.

4) The code that is written can seem a little intimidating, and very messy. Often the author will try and boast by showing us (as he even states) useless code examples. WHY???

5) Code examples contain errors, which is very frustrating. On page 137, he refers to builtin javascript variable with code example doucment.bgcolor. It should be doument.bgColor
On page 258, he outdoes himself by making two FATAL programming errors. This is the case where an assignment statement (=) is incorrectly used where a comparison (eq) operator should be used.
The other involved an incorrect use of the open() statement.
This program of course did not compile, and dents the confidence one has when relying on the book for code examples.

6) Errors in formatting. On page 222, the user is greeted with formatting codes (looks like LaTex) which have somehow slipped past the author and made it's way into the book.

On the upside, the HTML section was fairly good, but then again, there isn't too much room for error when explaining this simple language.
My advice, find another book. Avoid this one like the plague!

This book provides horrible code examples, the author does not explain the syntax of code at nearly the empirical level required for a novice web developer. He omits blocks of code from larger program examples if he feels he has "explained" it already, which makes the larger code blocks even more difficult to comprehend given his lack of explanations. This book is not suitable as a tool to teach oneself from scratch.

I was given this book as part of a graduate IT course. As I had an excellent understanding of HTML already I skipped to the Javascript section and was sorely disappointed. As another reviewer has pointed out, there were several blatant errors in the code that were quite unbelievable. Surely the assignment operator (=) and the equality operator ( == or eq) should not get mixed up in a published book, yet in this case they were. I tried to read on but kept on encountering poor editing and what seemed to be a lack of understanding on part of the author. Needless to say I quit the course and bought the Definite Guide to Javascript.

Let me start out by saying that if this wasn't a "required" textbook for a class I am taking in college I would have shipped this back to Amazon a long time ago and demanded my money back. That is how bad this book is.

Have you ever tried to take a class and the book you are using is filled with page after page of errors? We're not talking about small errors, but errors of the magnitude that it affects the subject matter being taught. I've never seen so many coding errors in all my life. I started this class not knowing a thing about Javascript and have no doubt I could have produced a better text than this.

Next, let's talk about the outdated examples. This book may have been great in 1996, but times have changed and technology has changed on the web. Many of the methods the author talks about are dated and just plain inefficient in the modern web world.

Strike three is the author's inconsistent use of programming syntax. In one example he'll close his tags, the next example he uses an in-line close, the one after that he doesn't close the tags at all. It is like reading a paper a 3rd grader wrote.

Unless you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY have to get this book for your class then don't. Before you spent a dime on it see if you can buy it used (I'm sure there are PLENTY of people who want to get rid of it). Finally, suggest to your instructor that they need to find a different book -- one that recognizes it is 2008 and one that wasn't written by a novice trying to teach on a professional level.

Required for a class, I have to suspect the college is getting a kickback or something. There are so many books that actually explain things I really don't know why we are using this. Head First HTML cover the same things and is readable. I am only using the book to copy the required code from. You really can't learn anything from it. Nothing personal against Mr. Bates. Perhaps as a supplement for his own class it would be fine, but as a standalone book is is useless.

Being a student of Bates I can vouch that his java abilities are underwhelming at most. It comes as no surprise that other reviewers have found his java code inadequate, badly commented, but mostly just wrong.

As my teacher of java (at University) all of the above points are manifested in his unworkable tutorial code. In short his inability and blatant disinterest in teaching are echoed throughout the book (and my university course).

I am sure he has made a quick $buck through the sale of this book as a staple coding reference for many of the U.K. Universities and colleges (where his friends work - standard lecturer swindling technique!!), albeit at the expense of students education.

My advice for any java/java applet code references is to look for SUNSOFT PRESS books (real-SUN), as they are fairly easy to follow

This book really got me working right away. In covering a fair number of technologies with supporting examples, the amount of detail was enough to help you to do things straight away without being overwhelming and unwieldy. I was able to understand the things I needed to know, and not worry about the unnecessary details.

Practicality is the key with this book. Loaded with examples that really made the concepts easy to understand. The "Rule of Thumb" proved to be a very helpful feature in picking out techniques to apply.

Is it because your professor told you to? Because, by virtue of it being a WEB programming book, every programming technique in here is explained just as clearly online. Go to the table of contents, Google every title. You will find a much greater wealth of resources, and you can choose the tutorials that suit your skill level. Oh, and you can also copy/paste the example scripts online, whereas you'll be typing the examples from the book. This book is currently buried under a stack of DVDs on my desk.