Good overview
Have not read this that much, but what I did read did help me. It's a great overview of different web programing languages, but if I ever got serious into one of them I would definitely want a specific book on that language.
Dated, but Excellent
I'm on my third version of this book. It is comprehensive technical reference of core web technologies.
Specifically, HTML, Javascript, HTTP, CSS, and the like. As a reference, it is very thorough in each topic, covering every single element, every single object, every single response header, and every single style (at the time it was written, anyway). However, it is also very succinct. This book is NOT FOR LEARNING. It's a REFERENCE for professionals.
Of all the technical books I've ever owned, this book is without any doubt the one I use the most. This book (and even the third version) is a little out-of-date. Nonetheless, it is invaluable to a web developer, and is still better than any other reference that I'm aware of.
Maybe I'm just a different kind of webmaster...
But I haven't found this book to be nearly as useful as I had hoped to after reading all these glowing reviews. My biggest problem with it is the lack of a simple Apache section governing all the real-world mods you might have to do on a regular basis. NOTHING in the book on, for instance, implementing SSL via .htaccess. In fact, it's because of the lack of treatment on SSL that I have to give this thing three stars. The CGI section is useful, the XML stuff is nice, the JavaScript reference is very valuable. But I have to say that without a comprehensive section on implementing SSL, this isn't a "real-world-ready" reference.
IT IS A REFERENCE :)
Perl in a Nutshell is quite complete. The 2nd addition covers CGI and Perl. This covers things that are specific to using perl on CGI. It is not a perl reference, it is a CGI reference.
This is not a tutorial for newbies but it is a fine book to get when you are a newbie. Obviously, since it is titled as a reference you will also want a book that is titled as a tutorial. (duh?)
Provides a lot of information over a wide subject
The book includes reference on HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, PHP, HTTP, Apache modules and configuration, and web server performance. While all of the material is covered in O'Reilly's other books, I was impressed with the layout and presentation of this book. I also found that the reference material that is buried deep in O'Reilly's other books, was very easy to find in this one. I was especially impressed with the JavaScript and HTTP reference, and feel that these two sections will be used by the majority of this book's readers.
(39 reviews)
