Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Having been a Web developer a while back, I wanted a reference book that serves as a refresher on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) -- and this book fits the bill perfectly. However, for someone who has no prior knowledge of HTML and CSS, this book comes up a little short. While it may be quite comprehensive in the topics it covers, it lacks a certain cohesiveness that would allow a beginner to use it as a practical guide for real world Web publishing. First, let's talk organization.
- Organization
This book has made a heroic effort to be comprehensive by attempting to cover everything from basic topics (e.g. tables, forms) to intermediate topics (e.g. embedding videos, absolute vs relative position, layers) to more advanced topics (e.g. Javascript [arrays, data types, loops, etc.], relational databases, server-side programming). That's all well and good, but it sometimes goes into so much of the nitty-gritty details that a beginner can easily lose sight of the complete picture. I feel it would be much better if the book had given a birds-eye view to get a beginner up to speed with the overall framework of a Web page before it went into the details.
- Practicality
The book barely touches on some important topics such as WYSIWYG editors (WYSIWYG is the acronym for "What You See Is What You Get" - pronounced wis-see-wig). *Real world* Web publishing use WYSIWYG editors (such as Adobe Dreamweaver) and other tools to expedite the development of Web sites. Hand-coding Web pages from scratch is almost never done. Mind you, I'm not saying learning how HTML/CSS works "under the hood" isn't important -- nothing can be further from the truth! My point is the book could have made more than passing mention of some of the practical aspects of Web publishing.
In addition, the book fails to sufficiently elaborate on the relationship between Javascript and HTML/CSS. Javascript, of course, is a major topic by itself -- in fact whole books are written on it - but the book could have at least made a stronger connection between HTML/CSS and Javascript since Javascript is so inextricably tied to HTML and CSS. Javascript is the basis for dynamic or interactive (vs. "static") Web pages.
- No Companion CD
The major beef I have with this book is that it doesn't have a companion CD with functioning Web pages that illustrate the HTML and CSS concepts covered in the book. At the very least, the book should have included a CD with the HTML and CSS examples presented in the book. Remember, HTML and CSS is best learned by example and experimentation. In this age of cheap storage media, there is simply no excuse to not include a companion CD.
- The Devil Is In The Details
Developing a highly-functional and complex Web page is a very involved process (the operative word here is *involved*). The book doesn't really discuss the problem of cross-browser compatibility. For example, different browsers (such as Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome) render some elements a little differently - enough to significantly alter or "break" your intended Web page design.
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The bottom line: Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing will get you up to speed with building a very basic Web page with relatively static (vs. dynamic) content. For a more practical guide to HTML/CSS for a beginner, you might want to consider Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML. Unlike Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and CSS, it doesn't just explain HTML/CSS with snippets of code, but walks you through the step-by-step building of functioning Web pages.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and CSS in One Hour a Day: Includes New HTML5 Coverage (6th Edition)
Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and CSS in One Hour a Day, Sixth Edition is the latest edition of the original worldwide bestseller. The entire book has been thoroughly revised and refined to include new detailed coverage of HTML5, the next major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, HTML. Work on the HTML5 specification is still ongoing, but parts of HTML5 are already being implemented in new versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera.
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