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HTML Goodies (2nd Edition)
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Author: Joe Burns
List Price: $24.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0789726114
Publisher: Que (15 January, 2002)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 32,216
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
The best plain english "how to" books on site design ever!
I cannot say enough about Joe Burns' books. I discovered his website back in the 90's and soon after came the book HTML Goodies. I am a person who has no formal training in website design, computers, anything technical. With Dr. Burns tutorials, I learned html, website design, adding graphics, javascript, getting my site online, and everything else I needed to know to design and get my (20+ page) business website up and making money for me. The best part of all is that Dr. Burns' books are written in PLAIN ENGLISH -- no tech degree needed to understand them. I highly recommend this book as well Dr. Burns' books: Beyond HTML Goodies and Javascript Goodies. You'll find these books are worth far more than their current price.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Effective but Flawed Guide (Beginner to Intermediate)
This is certainly a very useful text you can use to teach yourself HTML programming code, but you can probably do better. That do-it-yourself focus is the true advantage of this book, as it's presented as a series of tutorials that are tied in to Burns' equally useful website (also called "HTML Goodies"), although the constant references to that site get dangerously close to advertising territory. You can disregard some of the reviews here by "experts" who complain about the low level of intellectualism in this book, because experts are clearly not the intended audience. Before this book I considered myself somewhere between beginner and intermediate, knowing some HTML basics, and the book has really filled out the gaps in my knowledge to the point where I'm sure I can now design a fully functional website. But aside from the strong educational aspects of this guide, the problem is Burns' writing and presentation.This guide is quite poorly edited with regular typos, even in some of the specific code examples that are used to demonstrate real programming language. Meanwhile, some concepts occasionally pop up that are not related to their surroundings and are clearly out of order. Examples include the section "What About That ? Mark?" on page 221, and a badly confused section on the pros and cons of frames to close out chapter 6. Burns often tells you to "recall" concepts that are first described later in the book - references to JavaScript commands are recurring examples of this problem. Since Burns is a self-taught HTML guru from the early days of the World Wide Web, he admits that he disdains recent programming developments, and flat out refuses to elaborate on new code possibilities that are clearly easier and more useful than his methods. He spends distracting amounts of time describing tangential software packages (such as CGI shareware or photo editors) that are merely the ones he uses. And throughout the book you are subjected to Burns' awful jokes. He's a good teacher but he sure ain't a comedian. The effectiveness of this book in helping beginners and intermediates to help themselves mostly merits five stars, but the flawed presentation brings my rating back down to the "average" level.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Good for learning, not for experts
I discovered Joe Burns, Ph.D. and his online references years ago. Generally I like his stuff a lot, mainly because Joe has a real advantage over most people who write computer books - He is NOT a computer professional! His Ph.D. is in Communications!That means Joe excels at explaining the way things work, but he is not always as good at writing good code. I actually tried to use his JavaScript book for an introductory JavaScript class I teach. Unfortunately, there were so many errors in his syntax that I never used that text in class again. In spite of the above comments, if you need a "how to" book to get you started in HTML, this is not a bad reference to begin with. The lessons will lead you step-by-step through core aspects of HTML and will introduce you to many *concepts* of web design in general. Just don't take Joe's word as gospel when it comes to the gritty details. After you get a feel for HTML, I recommend that you get O'Reilly's "HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide". The O'Reilly text WILL give you the correct (and definitive!) nitty-gritty details, but it is NOT for beginners. Think it as you would a dictionary. Use Joe's book to learn the how and why, then polish your HTML knowledge and skill with the Definitive Guide. Have fun!
Similar Products
· How to Do Everything with HTML
· Web Site Design Goodies
· Beyond HTML Goodies
· HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition
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