David
12th Oct 2006, 11:07 pm
Elizabeth Castro's book is an excellent start for (X)HTML beginners. It assumes nothing and there is lots of context (in the form of an excellent introduction to the book and useful chapter introductions) to help you understand how things work even before you start with (X)HTML itself. This 6th edition has been completely rewritten and is printed in full colour. The book continues the transition, begun in the 5th edition, between old-style coding and modern coding. It treats XHTML and CSS as partners in the webpage design process. The only remaining vestige of old-style coding is in Chapter 16 on Tables where tables are considered as a way of structuring a page layout. However, in the introduction to that chapter, the author is very careful to put this into context. The book also encourages readers to consider working to the latest XHTML standards and explains the importance of the DOCTYPE. The logic and reasoning behind the various editorial decisions in this new edition cannot be faulted and the content is first rate.
The working sections of the book are simple and clear and slowly build to give the reader lots of confidence. Lots of good examples showing the (X)HTML code and the browser results help you make the conceptual link between the two. One might imagine that a book of this sort is very quickly out-of-date but the author has taken the very sensible decision to work with the forthcomming IE7 browser as well as the latest versions of FireFox and Safari so that it remains current for as long as possible. A number of chapters from the 5th edition have been dropped. Those on Frames and those on depreciated XHTML tags. This in itself is good news, even better news is that there are new chapters and sections on multimedia, SEO, handheld devices, syndication and podcasting.
This remains a truly excellent book and is by far and away the best single volume introduction to webpage design. For more information, see the companion web site (http://www.cookwood.com/html/), which contains a full table of contents and a short extract.
The working sections of the book are simple and clear and slowly build to give the reader lots of confidence. Lots of good examples showing the (X)HTML code and the browser results help you make the conceptual link between the two. One might imagine that a book of this sort is very quickly out-of-date but the author has taken the very sensible decision to work with the forthcomming IE7 browser as well as the latest versions of FireFox and Safari so that it remains current for as long as possible. A number of chapters from the 5th edition have been dropped. Those on Frames and those on depreciated XHTML tags. This in itself is good news, even better news is that there are new chapters and sections on multimedia, SEO, handheld devices, syndication and podcasting.
This remains a truly excellent book and is by far and away the best single volume introduction to webpage design. For more information, see the companion web site (http://www.cookwood.com/html/), which contains a full table of contents and a short extract.