What is this book about?

Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS teaches you how to write Web pages using HTML, XHTML, and CSS. It follows standards-based principles, but also teaches readers ways around problems they are likely to face using (X)HTML.

While XHTML is the "current" standard, the book still covers HTML because many people do not yet understand that XHTML is the official successor to HTML, and many readers will still stick with HTML for backward compatibility and simpler/informal Web pages that don’t require XHTML compliance.

The book teaches basic principles of usability and accessibility along the way, to get users into the mode of developing Web pages that will be available to as many viewers as possible from the start. The book also covers the most commonly used programming/scripting language — JavaScript — and provides readers with a roadmap of other Web technologies to learn after mastering this book to add more functionality to their sites.

As the Web has evolved, tools and methods for creating Web pages have also changed and matured. This book teaches you to create Web sites using a combination of new and mature technologies and shows you the best practices that have emerged for using these technologies. In these pages you will learn to build Web sites with traditional HTML and its successor XHTML. You will see how CSS can be used to make your Web pages more attractive by controlling the presentation and formatting of pages, and how to use JavaScriptandtrade; to enhance the power of your pages. Along the way you will learn how to make your pages work in several generations of Web browsers, including new Web-enabled devices such as mobile phones. You’ll also learn techniques that make your site more usable and accessible. What you will learn from this book How to create Web sites using established standards The differences between HTML and its successor XHTML How to include images and links in your pages Methods of collecting information from visitors to your site using forms Ways to control the appearance of your pages (such as fonts, colors, and backgrounds) using CSS How to use tables, frames, and CSS to control page layout Design issues such as creating simple navigation and usable forms How to deliver Web pages to a wide range of devices The basics of using JavaScript in your pages Who this book is for This book is for anyone who wants to understand the language of the Web and learn to create Web pages. You should know how to access and view Web pages with a browser, but previous programming experience is not necessary. Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

What is this book about?

Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS teaches you how to write Web pages using HTML, XHTML, and CSS. It follows standards-based principles, but also teaches readers ways around problems they are likely to face using (X)HTML.

While XHTML is the "current" standard, the book still covers HTML because many people do not yet understand that XHTML is the official successor to HTML, and many readers will still stick with HTML for backward compatibility and simpler/informal Web pages that don’t require XHTML compliance.

The book teaches basic principles of usability and accessibility along the way, to get users into the mode of developing Web pages that will be available to as many viewers as possible from the start. The book also covers the most commonly used programming/scripting language — JavaScript — and provides readers with a roadmap of other Web technologies to learn after mastering this book to add more functionality to their sites.

What is this book about?

Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS teaches you how to write Web pages using HTML, XHTML, and CSS. It follows standards-based principles, but also teaches readers ways around problems they are likely to face using (X)HTML.

While XHTML is the "current" standard, the book still covers HTML because many people do not yet understand that XHTML is the official successor to HTML, and many readers will still stick with HTML for backward compatibility and simpler/informal Web pages that don’t require XHTML compliance.

The book teaches basic principles of usability and accessibility along the way, to get users into the mode of developing Web pages that will be available to as many viewers as possible from the start. The book also covers the most commonly used programming/scripting language — JavaScript — and provides readers with a roadmap of other Web technologies to learn after mastering this book to add more functionality to their sites.

An excellent book...
This is an excellent book in order to learn actual web page design. It’s really easy to follow by non-english speakers (like me, I’m spanish).

It has a lot of usefull information about HTML, CSS and general web design.

Highly recommended!!!

Programmer
I as a programmer think that this book is a productive book, the guy go over all the materials you need to learn step by step and smoothly.

Excellent - Informative
It’s an excellent and informative book! It helped me very much to teach the item to a very "difficult audience"!

Great teaching book
Great introduction to front-end web programming using XHTML and CSS. It even gets into the nitty-gritty of SEO strategies, rating your site for child access, testing methods, and accessibility for the visually impaired. Also provides a good, although brief intro to JavaScript, database driven websites, and programming for mobile devices.

Yes there is a lot of repetition and a bit of wandering back and forth across subjects, and yes it can be annoying. But most books in this genre are guilty of that. This one is no better nor worse than the others. Nice reference and appendix. Recommended.

Hard to follow
I have gone from being frustrated with this title to disliking it intensely. I would suggest alternate materials such as the O’Reilly publication, "HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide."

First, "BWP w/HTML, XHTML, and CSS" is dated. Its publication date is 2004. This text often complains that features "are not supported by browsers" that have since been updated. There are more current materials published within the last year. (And on the subject of browsers, I have not found a single mention of Mozilla, Safari, or Opera in this book).

Second, the author’s presentation is often difficult to follow. Concedely it is a difficult subject to organize when there are "live" tags, "deprecated" tags, the ongoing effort to separate stylistic elements into CSS, and different browswers’ idiosyncracies with which to deal. Duckett, however, is next to hopeless in separating these subjects.

Most critical is the fact that this book is a very unhappy blend between an introductory tutorial and a reference "bible." Duckett will introduce a basic concept -- say, "tables" and will then load up on all of the attributes that the element might take. Learning the key ideas gets lost in the process. The book often leads off into asides and references to more advanced topics that will easily lose the initiate. It is no coincidence that several of the reviews here use the word "intermediate" in connection with this text.

The author does not seem to understand the principle that individuals learn by working from the "known" step-by-step to the "unknown." Instead, he seems to rely upon the idea that "if I throw everything at them in a random fashion, they’ll figure out a good amount of it."

As an example of its "random walk" approach, Chapter 4 first provides a sound introduction into the use of colors and making references to images. The closing section of the chapter, however, branches off into a discussion of the