css

CSS: The Missing Manual
$34.99
this book has some good in dept details of the function of css and the tags that may be used. but if youre unfamiliar with syntax and general knowledge of page layout, it might be difficult to understand what the writer is referring to. and it lacks graphic representation of each example they refer to. there is free content that you can download online that is mentioned at the end of the book. might be worth looking at if youre familiar with other forms of coding and want to go into a more graphic approach to building web pages.

Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML & CSS
$29.95
Written in plain english so even I could understand and use this technology. I didn't know I could create my own html, css, and code and use it effectively. I have more than one book on this subject, but this one is on top of the stack. Written for novices and veterans alike I suppose. I'm up and running now.

Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns
$44.99
I'll admit, this book has great potential. I like texts that try to tackle specific programming concepts individually, without bogging the reader down with excess concepts that haven't been discussed yet. There are far too many CSS books out there which either a.) don't include adequate examples, or b.) have multilayered, 10- to 20-page examples which are excessively complex (and yet many of these books claim to be written for beginners!).

But while the conceptual organization of this book is great, I think it falls flat on its face in practice.

My biggest gripe is simple: For a cookbook-style text to work effectively, you must have recipes which are complete and usable. And the vast majority of the examples in this book are not. Most are akin to a cake recipe which states, "Add 2 eggs, 2 cups of flour. You know the rest."

But I found that, all too often, I didn't know the rest. The author consistently omits code that he describes as "non-essential rules." In some cases, these rules are CSS declarations that are repeated in many examples - e.g., background and border rules.

But in other instances, there is more critical information that is omitted, both from the CSS and HTML sample code... and the only way to figure out how the code is *supposed* to look is to download the sample code off the author's site. These source code files might reveal parent s which are omitted from the book's code, as well as additional positioning rules (especially for absolutely-positioned elements) which, again, are simply not included in the book's examples - yet are critical to the functionality of the examples.

In some cases, there is no HTML included at all - so it is up to the user to either fill in the gaps, or else to download the source code off the site - code which, once again, does not come close to matching the code that's printed in the book.

Again I say, if this text aims to provide reusable design patterns, then these designs should be complete, or at least very close to complete. There are far too many code samples in this book (the vast majority, in fact) which don't render to look anything like the accompanying images.

I'm pretty certain that these omissions are largely intentional on the part of the author. After all, he admits in many cases that he does this to limit the sample code to a single page. But what good is brevity if it comes at the expense of usability? What good is a short code sample if it doesn't even work?

This book has a lot of potential, but it needs to be re-written so as to be more accessible to, and directly usable by, its readers. Hopefully the next edition will be better.

Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML
$39.99
I'm a C/Java coder who's been getting into web designing as a hobby. I have to say, the approach the Head First folks took with this book seemed a little unconventional at first, but after I'd devoured the first 200 pages and hardly felt like I was breaking a mental sweat I realized: it works! The authors are thorough, accurate, and enjoyable to read, and the material builds a great and easy-to-understand foundation before it takes you right into the realm of building valid XHTML. I'm a little old to relate to all the "hipsters" featured as characters in the book, but they do make the material that much more engaging, and add an element of fun to the projects. Those projects are non-trivial, and result in your learning to code some pretty nice web pages--and the authors do a fine job of presenting alternate methods to achieve similar results and are honest about the shortcomings of each.

I highly recommend this as your first book on programming HTML/CSS! I've ordered the Head First Javascript and PHP volumes for my further learning experiences.

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