HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
by Elizabeth Castro
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Book Reviews of HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
Book Review: IDWIMIE
Summary: 3 Stars
It Doesn't Work In Microsoft Internet Explorer (IDWIMIE)
A quick note to all beginning website developers/designers is to keep in mind that acronym. My experience with website development, and I know I'm not alone, is that you tend to tweak your code so that it actually works, or even looks decent, in Internet Explorer. All other browsers typically do not have problems with standards-compliant code. Internet Explorer is the exception. Reading through this book, you will see that the author points these problems out and usually offers a tweak to get the code working in Internet Explorer. If you are serious about web design, test your code in multiple browsers (i.e. Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer). A good web developer can create a website that looks consistent across the major browsers.
I recently read this book. I consider myself fairly versed in (X)HTML and CSS, so I didn't read it as a beginner. However, I can certainly see that this book might be a bit confusing to follow for beginners. Don't get me wrong. It's a good book, but you will most certainly want a second book on hand to reference or get a different view on the subject. (I recommend the HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference, 3rd Ed. or later, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins.)
My first quarrel with this book is that it tends to get repetitive. I noticed this by the end of the third chapter. It really got to me by the time I got to the seventeenth chapter. Perhaps this is because I didn't read this book as a beginner, and maybe it would cater to the absolute beginner.
My second quarrel with this book is the formatting. This book is set up as a step-by-step approach with the parts you actually type being bolded. I personally do not like this format. This works most of the time, but the author uses standard English punctuation in the list of steps and at times it interferes with the code being typed in the steps. For instance, each step ends with a period, and sometimes the period is bolded with the code to type and it would appear as if the reader is supposed to type the period as well. Also, there are parts of the code the author is trying to get the reader to type and it's not bolded. In my opinion, the code should be presented in its entirety and *then* explained one step at a time. That way the reader can see the code in its entirety and have it in mind as it's being explained. The author does give examples of code, but they are offered in very small snippets in the margins. Sometimes the code is in the middle of a bunch of other code, with the part pertaining to the example being highlighted in blue. Like I said before, this works most of the time, but it may lead to some confusion for beginners.
One thing I did enjoy about the book (6th edition) was that it is in full color. This is tremendously helpful for web design. It's hard to explain color in a black-and-white printed book. Props to the publisher for offering full color.
Another thing I like about this book is the "tips" portion at the end of each section. These tips provide a lot of good information about the code which was just explained. Reading these tips, you'll quickly begin to see why I put that acronym at the top of this review. The tips will offer advice for using the code, tweaks for standards compliance, suggestions for making your code accessible to disabled users, and tweaks for making your code work with Internet Explorer. For me, the tips offered a lot of good information.
This book also does a good job of explaining the use of different style sheets for different media. There is a chapter which covers style sheets for handheld devices, which is important with mobile phones increasingly utilizing the Internet. There is also a chapter that covers style sheets for printing on paper, which is very useful if your site provides print-worthy information. Both of those chapters provide for a good learning experience.
Overall, this book is a good book. I would recommend it for anyone wanting to learn website development. However, be prepared to have a second book on hand to offer an alternate view for clarity.
Book Review: I generally liked the book but....
Summary: 4 Stars
I think the errata, at the authors website, needs to be updated because there are even more mistakes in the book, mostly in the code examples, that have not been covered in the errata at the author's website. Also there are some errors in the code examples that does make it frustrating, as well. But, then again, it was a good exercise in trying to find out why the code wasn't working right..something one will have to do anyway. On the other hand, when one is new to the subject, and trying to learn something, it is nice to see how it is supposed to work right the first time. I am surprised that after, what 3 years, the code has not been corrected at the author's web site nor the errata more extensive.
The author made available, on her website, all of the code examples contained in the book...saving you the necessity of having to type it all out yourself. She also provided the code examples download in one complete zip file, as well. The file names in the zip file do not have any reference to a Chapter number or figure numbers so you have to hunt around, opening each one, to find the example you are looking for. Or, you can also open up her website index and cross reference to the Chapter and figure that way. I like the zipped file because I can run most programs without having to be online and at the author's web site. I renamed my unzipped files with the chapter and figure numbers(at least the html ones...the css ones are being referenced by the html ones when the programs are run).
All of the examples, for example, in Chapter 10 have the same code problem (specifically, if you click on "Park Guell" it is supposed to link down to "Park Guell" section but it doesn't do so because the <a href> did not match the <a name="">. "Guell" was used in one and "milla" was used in the other. Another example in Ch 10 was in fig. 10.11 in the use of a:link, a:hover {font-weight:bold} which did not work but did work if I separated the a:link from the a:hover instead of having it on one line separated by a comma. Another example in several of the examples in Ch10 is the use of the same color for a:link and a:hover (why use the same color? you cannot tell the difference when hovering over the link.) In Ch8 fig 7.17 it showed color:rgb(%35,0%,50%) which wouldn't work until I discovered that the %35 should have been 35% which worked ok. I am using a Firefox browser and maybe some of the stuff I had problems with might have worked ok in another browser, I don't know. I am only half-way through the book and hope that there are no other coding or printed errors.
If it is true that the author came across as not favoring IE, I don't blame her. With the history of IE being constantly full of security leaks and Microsoft's reticence in patching them; and apparent obstinance, even arrogance, of accepting what works best and in the interest of it's users, I am surprised that IE still has the numbers of users that it does. But that's just my opinion...and the opinion of millions of others who wised up and bailed on IE for a more reliable, and less troublesome, browser. If you are still using IE I hope you are at least using Sandboxie as well which isn't a bad idea for any browser or email program you are running. You'd be surprised at how much junk (probably a lot of malware, etc) tries to sneak into your system..stuff you can see every time you clean out your Sandboxie at the end of every surfing session.
Book Review: Author hampered by VQS design
Summary: 3 Stars
There are several reasons I couldn't bring myself to give this book five stars, although I would have liked to. The author writes well and covers a lot of ground, but the pace is uneven and I feel it comes up short on the treatment of some important topics.
I first learned (X)HTML by studying the fourth edition of Thomas Powell's "HTML & XHTML: The Complete Reference" HTML & CSS: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition (Complete Reference Series)." That book was more than twice the size of Castro's book and a much more thorough and better illustrated treatment of the markup languages. However, Powell's volume was copyright 2003, and the theory and practice of "proper" web design are fast moving targets, especially considering the evolution and increasing adoption of CSS, DHTML, JavaScript and the DOM over the last decade, as well as the growing emphasis on standards and the separation of structure and presentation. I bought and read Castro's book primarily as a refresher course. I'm glad I already had a good background in the subject.
I suspect the author was handicapped by the publishing style used in the "Visual Quickstart Guide" titles. That style divides each page into two columns. The outside column is used for the main explanatory text, while the gutter column displays examples--typically screen captures and/or code snippets--that illustrate the concepts discussed in the accompanying text. When I first encountered this format in one of their books on XML, I rather liked it, but the enchantment quickly faded. Structuring content such that each topic should fit in the limited space of a single column on a page just doesn't work for me. Some topics in Castro's book deserved more space; e.g., divs, forms, float, position. Limiting the code to snippets short and small enough to fit in a narrow gutter column also restricts the author's ability to properly display relevant code. The Murach books use a similar design, but it works much better; their books are a larger format and they use facing pages instead of hamstringing the authors by dividing each page into two narrow columns.
I was also disappointed in not being able to find any way to post errata on the book's website; there were several I found that were not listed in the official posted errata. I enjoyed the treatment of podcasts and rss feeds at the end of the book, although those subjects seemed a bit off-topic. The last quarter of the book is devoted to a reasonably good HTML reference but, since that kind of information is readily available online, I think the space could have been used more profitably by expanding the coverage of HTML core concepts.
Because of the uneven pace of instruction, the cramped presentation, and limited coverage of important layout techniques, I think this book would not be one I would recommend to someone new to HTML markup. However, I attribute the shortcomings more to the publisher than the author.
Book Review: Not for the beginner
Summary: 2 Stars
It staggers me that this book has received high ratings from so many people. Good luck if you're a beginner trying to learn HTML and CSS from this book. Before you even see so much as one HTML tag, the author leaps in to talking about the W3C, cross browser issues, HTML extensions, the web standards project, CSS workarounds, XML, markup languages, is XHTML dangerous, the difference between serving a page as XML or XHTML, text content, the identical properties of XHTML and HTML (just in case you're wondering, no, we still haven't seen a working example of a HTML tag yet, and we are now on page 27), elements, attributes, values, elements containing other elements, empty elements, tags, hex colors...
OK! Now we have seen our first few tags. But oops.. rather than receiving a proper introduction, the tags shown are merely displayed in side columns, to assist in making points about "attribute pair values" and layout.
And so on we go hearing about Uniform Resource Locators, block vs inline, parents and children (still no proper introduction to our first tag), plug ins, helper applications, file names, absolute and relative urls, web accessibility... and on to page 40 which gives theory about DOCTYPES, standards and quirks mode.. now here's some theory about building web pages for an intended audience, saving web pages, creating default pages, editing and organisng files (page 52, still haven't seen our first tag), how to get web design inspiration, more on DOCTYPEs, character encoding, the HTML and HEAD tags.. what's this?! Oh my gosh! Page 58 and finally the HTML tags start getting introduced!
I'm sorry, but this is garbage. If I don't have a solid, working understanding of HTML (which I don't, hence why I bought this so called guide to "learn" XHTML and CSS), then there is NO WAY I am going to have the *FAINTEST CLUE* what the author is talking about in those first 58 pages. NONE.
Here is something along the lines of what I was hoping to see, perhaps no later than about page 3:
Type this in to your text editor, and save it as myfirstpage.html:
Hey! This is my first web page!
Now view it in your web browser. Now put some <h1> tags around it (explain what a tag is, and what h1 means), now save again, and view in your web browser. See how the text has now become more enlarged and prominent? That's because the web browser can see the <h1> tags around your text, so is now displaying your text as a heading.
THAT is how you introduce someone to HTML.
In summary:
If you're a beginner, stay as far away as you possibly can from this book. It will probably turn you off trying to learn HTML and CSS.
For the intermediates, the best this book will do is act as an occasional reference for ideas you already have some knowledge of. It is only for this reason that the book was saved from receiving a 1 star rating from me.
Book Review: Let your fingers do the walking ---- and then some!!
Summary: 2 Stars
The book is obviously for beginners and does have a lot of information that can be useful. The author uses a contradictory style of presentation in the book - easy to read with visual examples; however nearly every page I read had references to other pages in the book. This is a real nightmare having to flip all around the book and try to stay with the flow of learning.
Because the author's "style" is to write on half the page and show examples on the other half - each page has half the content. Yet, in that reduced page content there are many references to other parts of the book. As only one example, look at page 105.
On this page you'll find references to page 151, page 69, page 114, pages 106-107, page 108, page 112 and page 113. Again, this is only one page and example because nearly every page is filled with these types of references that make the "Yellow Pages" look tame.
I got through the first six chapters and couldn't deal with it any longer. In those 118 pages that I went through, there had to be several hundred (if not 1000+) references to other pages. Considering there are 436 pages in the book (not counting the index) I didn't feel it worth my time or effort to continue.
Working in the IT industry for more than 25 years, I can only thank my lucky stars that the author was never a part of our planning committees or programming departments. Flow charts, logic, etc would have been all over the place with connectors out of control.....and then try to get staff to follow/understand that flow. Yeah, right!!!
I gave the book to a co-worker with cautionary remarks about how difficult it might be to follow along. I'll give my co-worker credit - she got nearly 200 pages into the book before giving up on it for the same reasons I did.
Continuity!
Fluidity!
You won't find it in this book!
So if you're willing to put up with paging through the book that often, and you can keep track of the "train of thought", then more power to you. There are other books available and they have got to be presented better than this one.....I continue to search Amazon for such a book and will order immediately!