A.P. Lawrence

Creating Cool Web Sites

• Dave Taylor
• Wiley
• 0764557386|

Order (or just read more about) Creating Cool Web Sites  from Amazon.com

I think the one thing that impressed me the most about this book was that the author didn't mention FrontPage or any other Web creation tool. He didn't even mention using Word, other than as a cautionary "Don't". No, he suggests Notepad, Mac TextEdit, or vi, pico etc. That alone is so refreshing.

But there's a lot more to like. This is a complete, soup to nuts, "getting started with web pages" guide that brings you from simple HTML right through Javascript, Cascading Style Sheets, basic forms, and even validation tools. The style is practical, with useful examples that don't get bogged down trying to cover every single aspect of every single tag. Yes, you'll want other, more comprehensive references later in your learning, but this really is a fast on-ramp to that Information Superhighway we used to hear so much about.

I didn't honestly expect to learn a lot from this, but I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a few pointers on things I missed in more detailed documentation. There were a few things here and there I took some exception to - things that aren't "wrong", but aren't entirely "right" either, but really these were just expository opinon: I would have explained them differently. One or two small and easily understood typo's didn't mar my enjoyment either.

This is definitely a book I can strongly recommend for someone who wants to start writing their own web pages.