Highly readable with an effective presentation
I started my search for an HTML+CSS book on Amazon, thinking that the highest-rated books would be a sure bet. I'm glad I browsed at the bookstore before buying, since otherwise I would have missed this gem of a book.
It was a good fit for me. The writing is concise, thoughtful, and light-hearted with an under-stated humor that makes you think how nice it would be to sit down and have a chat with the author.
The order of the presentation is very logical, and the integrated teaching of a little XHTML with the CSS to go along with it in every chapter was exactly what I wanted. I had a sense of orderly, steady progress while reading along and doing the exercises, moving from one "baby step" (my word choice) to the next.
What this book teaches, you will learn well. It gives as much depth and coverage of HTML and CSS as I think a single-volume primer should: not too little and not too much. I don't feel intimidated now at all, to pick up Eric Meyer's CSS books or to read through the HTML of popular web pages, to see how they tick.
Sure, there are errata--those are corrected on the author's website. I also wasn't thrilled with Sybex's typesetting and choice of inserts at the front of the book. There are quibbles to be found once or twice in every chapter, but overall this book seems to be a product of experience and careful attention to the presentation.
This book isn't as flashy as some, but it's solid, acceptably up-to-date, and worthy of your time. I recommend it especially for beginners who tend to procrastinate when seeing large tomes and who want to start small but have big ambitions... like me!
Well written
I know that this is written by someone very knowledgeable (at least for HTML and related web technology) right from the beginning when I read the first chapter. I learned HTML 8 years ago and didn't keep up with the latest version for a while; I read about CSS on the web, but never felt like mastering it, until I read this book. She is good in pointing out all the interesting details.
I definitely recommend this book strongly.
A frustrating learning experience
After learning HTML a few years ago I decided to write my new website using CSS. This book was to be my introduction to CSS, and I am sorry I spent my money on it. Learning should be fun, and this book is not. It has good information, but such poor layout and so many errors in it I hardly know where to begin. When I'm learning something new and an exercise doesn't turn out right, it's natural for me to assume I've made a mistake. After literally hours of fighting with the code, I find out it's because of a typo in the book!
For example, in chapter 7, learning how to make links, I couldn't get the links from the "blue" page to link to the "yellow" and "green" pages. I followed her instructions to the letter, reading the same paragraphs over and over. Then, after a frustrating hour, I tried experimenting with other things. Turns out, I needed a "./" before the path to the linked file. The book said to use "../" . One "dot" off, and it nearly drove me crazy! Now, this solution isn't consistent with the code for links on the "index.html" page, and they "should" be the same, but they aren't, and I'm more confused than ever.
If this was the only error, I'd not complain, but the book is simply riddled with sloppiness in the details. The book contains a CD for the reader to use to duplicate the exercises in the book. In chapters 4 and 5, the book uses a page about a bridge to teach formatting, inserting images, etc. The book shows page screenshots where the filler text is in English. The pages from the CD sometimes show the filler text in Latin. The author tells the reader where to insert a bit of code in the English text, but the reader working with the page from the CD is left to figure out where in the Latin text is the same place to insert the code. These are just two errors, and there are so many more.
The book uses small fonts and has a lack of whitespace. There are a lot of tips and notes that, while useful to know, interrupt the instructions and break my train of thought. The screenshots are not aligned well with the text. It would have been helpful to actually have arrows pointing to the parts of the screenshot that the code pertains to, but that's not possible because the screenshots on the pages often pertain to text on other pages.
I recently saw "More Eric Meyers on CSS" and was struck by its' beautiful user-friendly layout. It makes learning almost effortless. It made me regret my purchase of this book.
A guidebook for the new millenium!
Virginia really teaches those of us who were weaned on tables how to approach the way of thinking about CSS based design. An excellent reference, I look at this every day. If it weren't for Virginia's clear thought process and method of thinking, I doubt that my web design business would be anywhere near keeping up with the times.
Good book, but has lots of gramatical errors
This is a good book, but I don't think it was proofread. There are numerous gramatical errors that are annoying. More than I have ever seen in a technical book.
(6 reviews)
