The Modern Web: Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript – #bookreview

The Modern Web
Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript
Peter Gasston
(No Starch Press – Kindle, paperback)

After a quick first glance, you might look right past this book. You might assume its title, “The Modern Web,” simply introduces some kind of heavily footnoted, academic study of the Internet.

Not so, Web breath. In this case, it’s the subtitle that should grab your attention.

Whether you hope to go into web development, or you’re already there, Peter Gasston’s new book can help you get an improved grasp on three important, device-agnostic tools that will be essential to your work and career development. They are: HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, that not-so-simple programming language that many new web specialists often try to avoid learning. (That’s because, typically, it’s easier, more fun and a bit less cryptic to work with HTML5 and CSS3.)

Also, Gasston notes, there have been big explosions in the number of libraries and frameworks that use JavaScript, further clouding a developer’s ability to know which ones he or she should learn next. (The author limits his coverage to four: jQuery, YepNope, Modernizr, and Mustache.)

Gasston’s well-written book zeroes in on the three “web technologies that can be used anywhere, from open websites to device-specific web apps.” And on all sorts of devices, ranging from tiny phones to tablet computers to wall-covering HDTVs.

And his teaching aim is to show you “modern coding methods and techniques that you can use to build websites across multiple devices or that are tailored to the single device class you’re targeting.”

By the way, “websites” is simply a shorthand term the author uses “to avoid repetition. The features you’ll learn from this book are relevant to websites, web applications, [and] packaged HTML hybrid applications–in short, anything that can use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.”

Gasston also wants you to learn that “fast” is the main thing that matters to those who will use your site. “Your site needs to be fast–and feel fast–regardless of the device it’s being displayed on,” he emphasizes. “And fast means not only technical performance (which is incredibly important) but also the responsiveness of the interface and how easily users can navigate the site and find what they need to complete the task that brought them to you in the first place.”

His 243-page book contains many short, useful code examples and illustrations, and is excellent for developers who have at least a little bit of experience with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript but aren’t sure where and how to focus their energies and attention for the rapidly changing career road ahead.

The Modern Web offers a well-organized introduction, plus 11 chapters:

1. The Web Platform
2. Structure and Semantics
3. Device Responsive CSS
4. New Approaches to CSS Layouts
5. Modern JavaScript
6. Device APIs
7. Images and Graphics
8. New Forms
9. Multimedia
10. Web Apps
11. The Future

There also are two appendices: Browser Support as of March 2013 and Further Reading.

Peter Gasston has been a web developer for more than 12 years, and his previous book is The Book of CSS3.

He notes that “[t]he Web is constantly evolving, and book publishing means taking just a single snapshot of a moment. Some things will change; some will wither and be removed. I’ve tried to mitigate this by covering only technologies that are based on open standards rather than vendor-specific ones and that already have some level of implementation in browsers.”

He urges developers to stay alert to changing Web standards and to “be curious, be playful, keep on top of it all. He stresses: “There’s never been a more exciting time to work in web development, but you’ll need to put in an extra shift to really take advantage of it.”

– Si Dunn

Kindle Fire HD: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition – Covers new features, how-tos for 7-inch / 8.9-inch tablets – #bookreview

Kindle Fire HD: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition
Peter Meyers
(O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)

O’Reilly recently has brought out the second edition of Peter Meyers’ popular how-to guide for using the Kindle Fire HD multi-purpose tablet.

The new edition covers the 7-inch and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire models, but does not cover the original, first-generation Kindle Fire that was released in November, 2011. For details of how to use that model, get the first edition of Meyers’ book.

Many of us who own Kindles tend to have more than one version in the family: his, hers, and the kids’, for example. And we tend to use just a few of the features over and over–until we suddenly need or want to try another feature and aren’t sure how it works. So it can be good to have both editions of this book on your reference shelf (or in your Kindles).

The new edition includes how to use the front-facing video camera and microphone that were added to the 7-inch and 8.9-inch Fire HD models for video and audio chat capabilities. An HDMI port also is offered on the HD models, so you can hook up a cable and view a Kindle-stored video on a TV screen.

By  the way, if you enjoy audiobooks, they “are now full-fledged members of Team Sync” in the Kindle Fire HD world, the author notes. For example, if you buy a Kindle book and click the “Add Narration” button, you will also get the synchronized audiobook. (The button appears on your Fire’s screen, and the extra charge ranges from free to $3.95, depending on the book.) You can listen to the audiobook played on your Fire HD while driving to work, and then, when you’re ready to read quietly during your lunch break, you can pick up, in the text, right where you left off. The Kindle Fire HD now includes an Audible.com player, as well, and you can link an existing Audible.com account.

This well-written, richly illustrated Missing Manual definitely covers “the important stuff you need to know,” in a well-organized, easy-to-use format. It can help you get the most–and possibly more than you expected–from your Kindle Fire HD.

– Si Dunn

Hadoop is hot! Three new how-to books for riding the Big Data elephant – #programming #bookreview

In the world of Big Data, Hadoop has become the hard-charging elephant in the room.

Its big-name users now span the alphabet and include such notables as Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, the New York Times, and Yahoo. Not bad for software named after a child’s toy elephant.

Computer systems that run Hadoop can store, process, and analyze large amounts of data that have been gathered up in many different formats from many different sources.

According to the Apache Software Foundation’s Hadoop website: “The Apache Hadoop software library is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using simple programming models. It is designed to scale up from single servers to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage.”

The (well-trained) user defines the Big Data problem that Hadoop will tackle. Then the software handles all aspects of the job completion, including spreading out the problem in small pieces to many different computers, or nodes, in the distributed system for more efficient processing. Hadoop also handles individual node failures, and collects and combines the calculated results from each node.

But you don’t need a collection of hundreds or thousands of computers to run Hadoop. You can learn it, write programs, and do some testing and debugging on a single Linux machine, Windows PC or Mac. The Open Source software can be downloaded here. (Do some research first. You may have use web searches to find detailed installation instructions for your specific system.)

Hadoop is open-source software that is often described as “a Java-based framework for large-scale data processing.” It has a lengthy learning curve that includes getting familiar with Java, if you don’t already know it.

But if you are now ready and eager to take on Hadoop, Packt Publishing recently has unveiled three excellent how-to books that can help you begin and extend your mastery: Hadoop Beginner’s Guide, Hadoop MapReduce Cookbook, and Hadoop Real-World Solutions Cookbook.

Short reviews of each are presented below.

Hadoop Beginner’s Guide
Garry Turkington
(Packt Publishing – paperback, Kindle)

Garry Turkington’s new book is a detailed, well-structured introduction to Hadoop. It covers everything from the software’s three modes–local standalone mode, pseudo-distributed mode, and fully distributed mode–to running basic jobs, developing simple and advanced MapReduce programs, maintaining clusters of computers, and working with Hive, MySQL, and other tools.

“The developer focuses on expressing the transformation between source and result data sets, and the Hadoop framework manages all aspects of job execution, parallelization, and coordination,” the author writes.

He calls this capability “possibly the most important aspect of Hadoop. The platform takes responsibility for every aspect of executing the processing across the data. After the user defines the key criteria for the job, everything else becomes the responsibility of the system.”

The 374-page book is written well and provides numerous code samples and illustrations. But it  has one drawback for some beginners who want to install and  use Hadoop.  Turkington offers step-by-step instructions for how to perform a Linux installation, specifically Ubuntu. However, he refers Windows and Mac users to an Apache site where there is insufficient how-to information. Web searches become necessary to find more installation details.

Hadoop MapReduce Cookbook
Srinath Perera and Thilina Gunarathne
(Packt Publishing – paperback, Kindle)

MapReduce “jobs” are an essential part of  how Hadoop is able to crunch huge chunks of Big Data.  The Hadoop MapReduce Cookbook offers “recipes for analyzing large and complex data sets with Hadoop MapReduce.”

MapReduce is a well-known programming model for processing large sets of data. Typically, MapReduce is used within clusters of computers that are configured to perform distributed computing.

In the “Map” portion of the process, a problem is split into many subtasks that are then assigned by a master computer to individual computers known as nodes. (Nodes also can have sub-nodes). During the “Reduce” part of the task, the master computer gathers up the processed data from the nodes, combines it and outputs a response to the problem that was posed to be solved. (MapReduce libraries are now available for many different computer languages, including Hadoop.)

“Hadoop is the most widely known and widely used implementation of the MapReduce paradigm,” the two authors note.

Their 284-page book initially shows how to run Hadoop in local mode, which “does not start any servers but does all the work within the same JVM [Java Virtual Machine]” on a standalone computer. Then, as you gain more experience with MapReduce and the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), they guide you into using Hadoop in more complex, distributed-computing environments.

Echoing the Hadoop Beginner’s Guide, the authors explain how to install Hadoop on Linux machines only.

Hadoop Real-World Solutions Cookbook
Jonathan R. Owens, Jon Lentz and Brian Femiano
(Packt Publishing – paperback, Kindle)

The Hadoop Real-World Solutions Cookbook assumes you already have some experience with Hadoop. So it jumps straight into helping “developers become more comfortable with, and proficient at solving problems in, the Hadoop space.”

Its goal is to “teach readers how to build solutions using tools such as Apache Hive, Pig, MapReduce, Mahout, Giraph, HDFS, Accumulo, Redis, and Ganglia.”

The 299-page book is packed with code examples and short explanations that help solve specific types of problems. A few randomly selected problem headings:

• “Using Apache Pig to filter bot traffic from web server logs.”
• “Using the distributed cache in MapReduce.”
• “Trim Outliers from the Audioscrobbler dataset using Pig and datafu.” 
• “Designing a row key to store geographic events in Accumulo.”
• “Enabling MapReduce jobs to skip bad records.”

The authors use a simple but effective strategy for presenting problems and solutions. First, the problem is clearly described. Then, under a “Getting Ready” heading, they spell out what you need to  solve the problem. That is followed by a “How to do it…” heading where each step is presented and supported by code examples. Then, paragraphs beneath a “How it works…” heading sum up and explain how the problem was solved. Finally, a “There’s more…” heading highlights more explanations and links to additional details.

If you are a Hadoop beginner, consider the first two books reviewed above. If you have some Hadoop experience, you likely can find some useful tips in book number three. 

– Si Dunn

Building Web, Cloud, & Mobile Solutions with F# – #programming #bookreview

Building Web, Cloud, & Mobile Solutions with F#
Daniel Mohl
(O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)

F# (pronounced “F-sharp”) is a relatively new functional, open-source programming language developed by Microsoft and the F# Software Foundation. F# can be used to create scalable applications with ASP.NET MVC 4, ASP.NET Web API, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Azure, HTML5, Web Sockets, CSS3, jQuery Mobile, and other tools.

Daniel Mohl’s Building Web, Cloud, & Mobile Solutions with F# is a well-written guide to “everything you need to know to start building web, cloud, and mobile solutions with F#.” Mohl also give some how-to examples using a range of technologies, libraries, and platforms, including SignalR, CouchDB, RavenDB, MongoDB, and others.

Mohl says his book is “intended for technologists with experience in .NET who have heard about the benefits of F#, have a cursory understanding of the basic syntax, and wish to learn how to combine F# with other technologies to build better web, cloud, and mobile solutions.”

In other words, this should not be your first book about F# or the relevant technologies that also are covered. Mohl recommends Chris Smith’s Programming F#, 3.0 as a first step toward learning the language.

In its 160 pages, Building Web, Cloud, & Mobile Solutions with F# offers five chapters, three appendices, and a number of code samples and screen shots. The chapters and appendices are:

• 1. Building an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application with F#
• 2. Creating Web Services with F#
• 3. To the Cloud! Taking Advantage of Azure
• 4. Constructing Scalable Web and Mobile Solutions
• 5. Functional Frontend Development
• Appendix A: Useful Tools and Libraries
• Appendix B: Useful Websites
• Appendix C: Client-Site Technologies That Go Well with F#

Mohl’s text also contains numerous links to important and useful websites.

He notes that “the primary focus of this book is on how to use F# to best complement the larger technology stack”, so he spends “a lot more time talking about controllers and models than views. F# provides several unique features that lend themselves well to the creation of various aspects of controllers and models.”

– Si Dunn

HTML5 and JavaScript Web Apps – With emphasis on the Mobile Web – #programming #bookreview

HTML5 and JavaScript Web Apps
Wesley Hales
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Increasingly, the world of Web development is taking on a “mobile first” attitude. And for good reason. Sales of desktop and laptop computers are shrinking, while sales of mobile devices seem to be swelling into a flood.

“Consumers are on track to buy one billion HTML5-capable mobile devices in 2013,” Wesley Hales writes in his new book. “Today, half of US adults own smartphones. This comprises 150 million people, and 28% of those consider mobile their primary way of accessing the Web. The ground swell of support for HTML5 applications over native ones is here, and today’s developers are flipping their priorities to put mobile development first.”

Hales’ HTML5 and JavaScript Web Apps focuses on using HTML5, JavaScript, and the latest W3C specifications to create mobile and desktop web apps that can work on a wide range of browsers and devices.

Indeed, deciding what to support is a key point in this useful, well-focused how-to guide. Hales notes: “Unfortunately the Mobile Web isn’t write-once-run-anywhere yet. As specifications become final and features are implemented, interoperability will be achieved. In today’s world of mobile browsers, however, we don’t have a largely consistent implementation across all browsers. Even though new tablets and phones are constantly being released to achieve a consistent level of HTML5 implementation, we all know that we’re [also] stuck with supporting the older, fragmented devices for a set amount of time.”

The 156-page book straddles “the gap between the Web and the Mobile Web” but puts a lot of emphasis on developing mobile applications. Here are its nine chapters:

1. Client-Side Architecture
2. The Mobile Web
3. Building for the Mobile Web
4. The Desktop Web
5. WebSockets
6. Optimizing with Web Storage
7. Geolocation
8. Device Orientation API
9. Web Workers

This is not a book for JavaScript, HTML, or CSS beginners. But if you have at least some basic experience with Web application development, Hales can help you get on track toward becoming a Mobile Web guru. Meanwhile, if you are already well-versed in the ways of the Web app world, you may still learn some new and useful things from HTML5 and JavaScript Web Apps.

– Si Dunn

JavaScript as Compilation Target: ClojureScript and Dart – #programming #bookreview

Despite its widespread success, JavaScript has a reputation for being a computer language with many flaws. Still, it is now everywhere on the planet, so it is here to stay, very likely for a long, long time.

Not surprisingly, several new languages have emerged that jump over some of JavaScript’s hurdles, offer improved capabilities, and also compile to optimized JavaScript code.

Two of these languages are the focus of noteworthy new “Up and Running” books from O’Reilly: ClojureScript: Up and Running and Dart: Up and Running.

Here are short reviews of each book:

ClojureScript: Up and Running
Stuart Sierra and Luke VanderHart
(O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

ClojureScript, the authors contend, “provides developers with a language that is more powerful than JavaScript, which can reach all the same places JavaScript can, with fewer of JavaScript’s shortcomings.”

The primary targets of ClojureScript are “web browser applications, but it is also applicable to any environment where JavaScript is the only programmable technology available,” they add.

“ClojureScript is more than Clojure syntax layered on top of JavaScript: it supports the full semantics of the Clojure language, including immutable data structures, lazy sequences, first-class functions, and macros,” they emphasize.

Their 100-page book focuses on how to use ClojureScript’s features, starting at the “Hello world” level and gradually advancing to “Development Process and Workflow” and “Integrating with Clojure.” (ClojureScript is designed for building client-side applications, but it can be merged with Clojure on the JVM to create client-server applications.)

Early in the book, they also describe how to compile a ClojureScript file to JavaScript and emit code “that is fully compatible with the Advanced Optimizations mode of the Google Closure Compiler.”

The two writers are Clojure/ClojureScript developers with a previous book to their credit.

ClojureScript: Up and Running is written well and appropriately illustrated with code samples, flow charts, and other diagrams. The authors recommend using the Leiningen build system for Clojure, plus the lein-cljsbuild plug-in for ClojureScript.

Their book is a smooth introduction to ClojureScript that requires no prior knowledge of Clojure. But you do need a basic working knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and the Document Object Model (DOM).

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Dart: Up and Running
Kathy Walrath and Seth Ladd
(O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

Google created Dart to be “an open-source, batteries-included developer platform for building structured HTML5 web apps,” the two authors note.

“Dart provides not only a new language, but libraries, an editor, a virtual machine (VM), a browser that can run Dart apps natively, and a compiler to JavaScript.”

Indeed, Dart looks very similar to JavaScript and is “easy to learn,” the two writers state. “A wide range of developers can learn Dart quickly. It’s an object-oriented language with classes, single inheritance, lexical scope, top-level functions, and a familiar syntax. Most developers are up and running with Dart in just a few hours.”

The authors work at Google and note that some of the software engineers who helped develop the V8 JavaScript engine that is “responsible for much of Chrome’s speed” are now “working on the Dart project.”

Dart has been designed to scale from simple scripts all the way up to complex apps, and it can run on both the client and the server.

Those who choose to code with Dart are urged to download the open-source Dart Editor tool, because it also comes with a “Dart-to-JavaScript compiler and a version of Chromium (nicknamed Dartium) that includes the Dart VM.”

Since Dart is new, the writers also urge readers to keep an eye periodically on the Dart website and on their book’s GitHub site, where code can be downloaded and errors and corrections noted.

Dart: Up and Running is a well-structured, well-written how-to book, nicely fortified with short code examples and other illustrations. While the book appears very approachable and simple, it is not for complete beginners. You should have a basic working knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and the Document Object Model (DOM).

If you are looking for a web development language that matches JavaScript’s dynamic nature but also addresses JavaScript’s sometimes-aggravating shortcomings, consider trying Dart—with this book in hand.

– Si Dunn

Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual – #bookreview

Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual
Chris Grover
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Chris Grover’s well-written and updated new book shows you how to build animated HTML 5 graphics for the iPhone, the iPad, and the Web, using familiar Adobe features. By the sixth page of the first chapter, you are using the software to begin creating your first animation.

The previous edition of this book, covering Adobe Edge Animate Preview 7, was released just two months ago, shortly before Adobe released the 1.0 commercial version of its Edge Animate product. This new edition has been updated and expanded to cover the commercial version.

Prior to the 1.0 release, seven Preview versions of Adobe Edge Animate had been issued as free downloads, and user feedback was gathered so the product could be enhanced and expanded.

Here is what I reported about this book’s Preview 7 edition in an  October, 2012, review:

First, this book can help you get started with the 1.0 commercial version of Adobe Edge Animate. Second, O’Reilly will soon bring out an Adobe Edge Animate “Missing Manual” that covers the new commercial release. And, third, sources at O’Reilly tell me that readers who purchase this Preview 7 edition of Chris Grover’s book will get access to “the e-book version of Adobe Edge Animate the 1.0 version and all of its updates.”

The new edition of Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual has ten chapters organized into five parts, even though page xiv of the paperback version states that the book is “divided into three parts.” (It then lists four parts, instead of  five, or three).  The new part in this edition is titled “Publishing Animate Compositions” and focuses on “Publishing Responsive Web Pages” that will look good “in web browsers of all shapes and sizes….” Here are the new edition’s parts and chapters:

Part One:Working with the Stage

• Chapter 1: Introducing Adobe Edge Animate
• Chapter 2: Creating and Animating Art
• Chapter 3: Adding and Formatting Text

Part Two: Animation with Edge Animate

• Chapter 4: Learning Timeline and Transition Techniques
• Chapter 5: Triggering Actions
• Chapter 6: Working Smart with Symbols

Part Three: Edge Animate with HTML 5 and JavaScript

• Chapter 7: Working with Basic HTML and CSS
• Chapter 8: Controlling Your Animations with JavaScript and jQuery
• Chapter 9: Helpful JavaScript Tricks

Part Four: Publishing Your Composition

• Chapter 10: Publishing Responsive Web Pages

Part Five: Appendixes

• Appendix A: Installation and Help
• Appendix B: Menu by Menu

Where keystrokes are appropriate, Chris Grover lists both and does not make you have to translate between systems, as some how-to manuals do.

“Animate works almost precisely the same in its Macintosh and Windows versions,” he assures. “Every button in every dialog box is exactly the same; the software response to ever command is identical. In this book, the illustrations have been given even-handed treatment, rotating between the two operating systems where Animate is at home (Windows 7 and Mac OS X).”

– Si Dunn

For more information: (O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

Learning Node – A good how-to guide for server-side Web development with Node.js – #programming #bookreview

Learning Node
Shelley Powers
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

 “Node is designed to be used for [server-side] applications that are heavy on input/output (I/O), but light on computation,” veteran Web technology author Shelley Powers notes in Learning Node, her ninth and newest how-to book from O’Reilly.

“Node.js,” she explains, “is a server-side technology that’s based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. It’s a highly scalable system that uses asynchronous, event-driven I/O (input/output), rather than threads or separate processes. “It’s ideal for web applications that are frequently accessed but computationally simple.”

I’ve criticized some previous Node books (1) for assuming that all of their readers know a lot about Node.js and assorted programming languages and (2) for not giving enough step-by-step installation and start-up information.

Happily, Learning Node is well written, nicely illustrated with code samples and screen shots, and assumes only that you have some working familiarity with JavaScript. It gives a detailed overview of how to set up development environments in Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows 7. “Installation on a Mac should be similar to installation on Linux,” the author adds.

One caveat regarding code examples: “Most were tested in a Linux environment, but should work, as is, in any Node environment.”

The 374-page book has 16 chapters. The first five “cover both getting Node and the package manager (npm) installed , how to use them, creating your first applications, and utilizing modules.”

Shelley Powers notes that she incorporates “the use of the Express framework, which also utilizes the Connect middleware, throughout the book.” So if you have little or no experience with Express, you will need to pay attention to chapters 6 through 8. But: “After these foundation chapters, you can skip around a bit,” she adds.

Some of the additional chapters cover key/value pairs, using MongoDb with Node, and working with Node’s relational database bindings.

Two chapters get into specialized application use. “Chapter 12 focuses purely on graphics and media access, including how to provide media for the new HTML5 video element, as well as working with PDF documents and Canvas,” the author points out. “Chapter 13 covers the very popular Sockets.io module, especially for working with the new web socket functionality.”

The final chapters are crucial, particularly if you want to move from learning Node to working in a production environment. Chapter 14 covers “Testing and Debugging Node Applications.” Chapter 15 “covers issues of security and authority…it is essential that you spend time in this chapter before you roll a Node application out for general use.”

Meanwhile, Chapter 16 describes “how to prepare your application for production use, including how to deploy your Node application not only on your own system , but also in one of the cloud servers that are popping up to host Node applications.”

Learning Node is both an excellent overall introduction to Node.js and a how-to reference guide that you will want to keep close at hand as you develop and deploy Node applications.

– Si Dunn

For more information: Node.js, paperback, Kindle

Head First HTML and CSS, 2nd Edition – An effective and entertaining guide now updated for HTML5 – #bookreview

Head First HTML and CSS, 2^nd Edition
Elisabeth Robson and Eric Freeman
(O’Reilly, paperback)

As a techie, I am admittedly a bit mediocre. I do know most of the critical differences between a couch and CouchDB. But I don’t speak fluent JavaScript or Klingon. I seldom eat regular expressions for breakfast. And I never brush my teeth with JSON or even SQLite.

In other words, I have to look up stuff in books, mess around with code examples, and try to puzzle out why I just wrote a function that completely blew up when I called it.

The clearer the how-to instructions and code examples, the better for my time-battered brain.

So, here is no surprise: I love the “Head First” series from O’Reilly. Its books introduce topics in amusing, easy-to-handle bites (and bytes) that are well illustrated and presented in orderly progressions. Typically, you create a simple project and spend the rest of the text learning how to add functions or features to it and improve its appearance and overall usability.

When I am in a mood to play for a few minutes or an hour or so, I enjoy opening a “Head First” volume. I can quickly teach my old-dog-self new tricks by working through a few of the examples and lighthearted explanations.

First published in 2005, Head First HTML and CSS has now been updated to cover HTML5. If you are a newcomer wanting to work with web pages or expand some basic web-page knowledge, Elisabeth Robson’s and Eric Freeman’s new 2^nd edition is an excellent guide. It shows, step by step, how to create standards-based web pages using HTML5 and cascading style sheets (CSS).

Do not be intimidated by the book’s size (723 pages) and heft (nearly four pounds).  It will get you off to a fast start learning basic Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). Then it introduces each new topic in small steps, with plenty of screenshots, diagrams, notes, tips, exercises, and Q&A sessions to help you stay on track.

Here is how the book is organized:

1. The Language of the Web: getting to know html
2. Meet the “HT” in HTML: going further, with hypertext
3. Web Page Construction: building blocks
4. A Trip to Webville: getting connected
5. Meeting the Media: adding images to your pages
6. Serious HTML: standards and all that jazz
7. Adding a Little Style: getting started with CSS
8. Expanding your Vocabulary: styling with fonts and colors
9. Getting Intimate with Elements: the box model
10. Advanced Web Construction: divs and spans
11. Arranging Elements: layout and positioning
12. Modern HTML: html5 markup
13. Getting Tabular: tables and more lists
14. Getting Interactive: html forms

The authors introduce basic HTML before taking you into HTML5. And they deliberately advocate “a clean separation between the structure of your pages and the presentation of your pages.” They teach you “to use HTML for structure and CSS for style….” They also show you how to test your web pages using more than one browser, so you can learn how to create pages “that work well in a variety of them.”

They do not try to cover everything in their “brain-friendly guide.”  They offer Head First HTML and CSS, 2^nd Edition as “a learning experience, not a reference book.” (The book’s appendix, by the way, is titled “The Top Ten Topics (We Didn’t Cover): leftovers.” It focuses on more things you might want to consider and try.)

Once the authors have tossed you in head first and helped you develop a reasonably good feel for HTML5 and CSS, then you can go look for the fancy stuff.

You will have better notions of what to do with it once you have it.

– Si Dunn

Learning Web Design, 4th Edition – Beginner’s guide updated for HTML5, CSS3 & JavaScript – #bookreview

Learning Web Design, 4th Edition
Jennifer Niederst Robbins
(O’Reilly, paperback)

Eager to learn web design, but not sure where to start and what you will need? Need a steady, guiding hand as you try to figure out how build your first web pages?

This handsome new edition of Learning Web Design can be your how-to, go-to handbook for a long time, whether you are a newbie or already have web experience.

The expanded and updated guidebook now includes coverage of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. There is also some focus on ensuring web pages display well on mobile device, and on making graphics files smaller for faster loading.

Subtitled “Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics,” Jennifer Niederst Robbins’ book is a complete, well-illustrated course. It can help you get a solid grounding in the fundamentals of web page creation and web design.

The book’s 603 pages are organized into 22 chapters and five parts. The parts are:

1. Getting Started
2. HTML Markup for Structure
3. CSS for Presentation
4. JavaScript for Behaviors
5. Creating Web Graphics

“There are many levels of involvement in web design, from building a small site for yourself  to making it a full-blown career,” the author notes. “You may enjoy being a full-service website developer or just specializing in one skill. There are a lot of ways you can go.”

In general terms, she divides “web design” into “four very broad categories: design, development, content strategy, and multimedia.” On a small website, you may be responsible for understanding and implementing them all. But if you work for a company with a very large website, you may be just one member of a big team that supports and updates or changes its pages. And your job may entail just one limited aspect of web design.

But the more you know and can show that you know, the better your job security and career options may be. Learning Web Design likewise can be an excellent reference handbook for students studying web design in college or high school. And, if you have a solo small business and are reasonably computer savvy, this book can help you put together, post and maintain a good website even if you have never touched HTML.

The author, a long-time veteran of web design, includes numerous tips and references to additional materials. She also ends each chapter with a “Test Yourself” quiz, so you can “see if you picked up the important bits of information.” And don’t worry. The answers to all of the questions are in Appendix A.

– Si Dunn