Web Standards Programmer's Reference : HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and PHP (Paperback)

by Steven M. Schafer (Author) "Before you begin to code HTML pages for the Web, it is important to understand some of the technology, standards, and syntax behind the Web..." (more)
Key Phrases: Latest Headlines, Bookmarks Tools Help, Internet Explorer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

• This invaluable resource offers tutorials and real-world examples as well as thorough language references for Web markup languages (HTML/XHTML and CSS), and popular scripting languages (JavaScript, Perl, and PHP)
• Examines the role of JavaScript, CGI (with examples in Perl and Python), and PHP on the Web and shows how to best use them all
• Includes a valuable reference section on each technology that can be used for review and consultation

From the Back Cover
Web Standards

HTML, CSS, JavaScript,® Perl, Python,® and PHP

Serving as both a "how-to" guide and a reference, this book is one-stop reading for all the essential Web standards—XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, CGI with Perl and Python, and PHP. In today's web environment, professional web coders and serious enthusiasts need to create documents and scripts that comply with published standards so your content can be viewed on as many web-capable platforms as possible. This book teaches the standards and technologies necessary to achieve that desired result.

Packed with examples for learning each of these standard technologies and followed by detailed references to each language, this book provides a total package for moving your web publishing to current standards-based coding.

What you will learn from this book

• A solid background and understanding of HTML and applying XHTML to format specific document elements
• Using CSS to select and format text, margins, colors, and other elements and position them on the page
• Applying JavaScript for client-side scripting and dynamic content delivery
• Using server scripts and CGI with the popular Perl and Python languages
• Publishing rich, dynamic content using the PHP scripting language
• The importance of following web standards to ensure compatibility with as many user agents as possible, including Internet Explorer, the increasingly important and popular Firefox, and the latest crop of mobile platforms
• How to avoid browser-specific code and deprecated tags and attributes that cause your documents to be unusable for many users

Who this book is for

The book is for programmers and web coders who want to learn web standards-compliant coding.

Wrox Programmer's References are designed to give the experienced developer straight facts on a technology, without hype or unnecessary explanations. They deliver hard information with plenty of practical examples to help you apply these tools to your development projects today.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 812 pages
• Publisher: Wrox (August 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764588206
• ISBN-13: 978-0764588204
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #664,716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Web standards?, August 8, 2006

By	William A. Fuqua - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a good book to refresh yourself on the syntax of each language, but don't try to learn web standards from this book! It spends about 10 pages in the HTML language section talking about how wonderful tables are when used to control the layout of your entire site. Anyone with any experience in HTML knows that this is a very bad idea. The Perl section had a few things wrong in the code as well. Overall, I was not impressed with this book. I probably could have gotten better tutorials for free on the internet.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars replaces 6 books [one for each language], August 9, 2005

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

How the Web has grown! In doing so, and aiding its growth, has been the use and development of several languages. Naturally, Schafer starts with the language that birthed the Web - HTML. Actually this needs its dual ("twin") on a server, http. But Schafer discusses http in a later chapter devoted to CGI.

Hopefully, you should be able to appreciate that HTML is simple. In fact, of all that the book discusses, HTML is the simplest language. Several initial chapters walk you through HTML. It must be stressed that mastery of HTML is needed to make sense of the rest of the book.

The later languages either extend the scope of an HTML file, or they generate the file, roughly speaking. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) lets you easily factor out common definitions that are used across multiple web pages, where you can imagine that each web page corresponds to a file storing it. Schafer explains how to use CSS to simplify management of a set of HTML files. A centralised way to set common fonts and the like. More robust.

But HTML is a declarative language. Good, because laymen can more easily understand and write such languages. It's easier to say what should be done, than how to do it. But for the times when you need more expressive power on the browser, Schafer offers JavaScript. A procedural language that actually has nothing to do with Java. [The coincidence in names was a marketing ploy.]

Schafer does not ignore the server. CGI is given, as the first generation attempt at server side code. Its limitations spawned the use of Perl, PHP and Python for easier parsing of user input and generation of new dynamic pages.

Each of these languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, PHP and Python) is often the subject of its own book. No surprise then that Schafer explaining all 6 gave us a book of this length!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great beginners reference book for beginners!!, May 24, 2007

By	Manuel Lopez "P.M.$." (Big Spring, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great reference book for beginners... I myself am a seasoned systems analyst and already had books that covered most of the basic topics discussed in this book. There were no real world examples and nothing about the pitfalls of using web standards before they are even supported by popular browsers. Like I said at first, it is a really great reference book; and if you need one to get started, this is it! You will still need a book dealing with the methodology variations in coding.