Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, & technology book reviews, plus social, political, & economic commentary
This fourth edition of Ben Frain’s Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS continues an information flow that has now spanned a decade and helped numerous new and experienced web designers. The book is well written and well illustrated with plenty of code examples to support key topics and instructions. The major principles of responsive … Continue reading Responsive Web Design with HTML5 & CSS, Fourth Edition – #bookreview
Node.js in Practice Alex Young and Marc Harter Manning – paperback I have had a long-term, love-ignore relationship with Node.js. I have taken Node classes, read Node books, and tinkered with Node programming both on Windows and Linux machines. Sometimes I have loved working with Node.js. Other times, I have ignored it for months … Continue reading NODE.js IN PRACTICE – A well-focused guide to understanding & using this powerful web development platform – #programming #bookreview
The Responsive Web Matthew Carver (Manning – paperback) While devices for viewing websites keep getting smaller–web-enabled watches are a recent example–the challenges get bigger and tougher for website designers and developers. How do you create websites that effectively adjust to the size of the devices where they are being viewed, while also delivering essential information … Continue reading THE RESPONSIVE WEB: A ‘mobile-first’ guide to creating websites effective for all devices – #bookreview
Instant Handlebars.js Learn how to create and implement HTML templates into your projects using the Handlebars library Gabriel Manricks (Packt Publishing – e-book, paperback) “Short, fast, and focused.” These are the three promises offered for Gabriel Manricks’ new book, Instant Handlebars.js, from Packt Publishing. And, at just 62 pages in print format, it lives up … Continue reading Instant Handlebars.js – A short but effective how-to guide – #programming #bookreview
Functional JavaScript Introducing Functional Programming with Underscore.js Michael Fogus (O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle) When I first started tinkering with JavaScript, object-oriented programming (OOP) was the rage, and JavaScript frequently was touted as one of the key object-oriented languages. After all, according to many online descriptions, almost everything within JavaScript “is OO.” Now, in this enjoyable … Continue reading Functional JavaScript – Applying functional techniques and Underscore.js – #programming #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. … Continue reading The Modern Web: Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript – #bookreview
Getting Started with Mule Cloud Connect Ryan Carter (O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle) In a digital world increasingly cluttered with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, Open APIs, and social networks, complexity quickly can get out of hand. “It all starts,” Ryan Carter writes in his new book, “with a simple API that publishes somebody’s status to Facebook, sends a Tweet, or updates a … Continue reading Getting Started with Mule Cloud Connect – To help sort out the chaos of Internet services – #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 … Continue reading JavaScript as Compilation Target: ClojureScript and Dart – #programming #bookreview
WordPress: The Missing Manual Matthew MacDonald (O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle) It’s easy to set up and launch a basic WordPress blog. But once you do, it’s also very easy to just keep blogging and ignore the many other options and features that WordPress offers. (I’m guilty of that, which is why I’m happy to see … Continue reading WordPress: The Missing Manual – Covers what you need to know & can profit from – #bookreview
Selectors, Specificity, and the Cascade: Applying CSS3 to Documents Eric A. Meyer (O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle) If you know some basic CSS but wonder how the “cascade” part of Cascading Style Sheets works, here is a useful guide. Actually, this is a 73-page, two-chapter excerpt from the upcoming fourth edition of Eric A. Meyer’s CSS: … Continue reading Specificity, Selectors, and the Cascade: Applying CSS3 to Documents – #bookreview
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