Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics

I'm sure a few of my colleagues and clients, if they discovered I recently purchased this book, would be rather stunned. Considering I was responsible for some pretty pioneering web content from near the early days of the web. However, the authorial skill of this book is so spectacular, and Robbins' knowledge depth is so continuously impressive, that I am page, by page presented with some new hidden epiphany, that years of acclaimed pro-level work had somehow not revealed to me prior! I intentionally bought this used and what an unimaginable value! Special highlights include the discovery that Robbins may have coded one of (or thee) very first website in history, (If I remember my reading right) and the humbling realization of what I can do with the <pre> tag relative to Ebook development, wow! This book is the radioactive spider bite that can turn you into a true webslinger! Special note, O'Reilly has got to be one the highest quality publishers in history, I'm jealous! The author, the content, and the design and construction of the physical version of this book is absolutely awesome! A true joy and inspiration to read!

I am only up to Chapter 5, so this review is limited to early impressions...I am a person who prefers to learn on my own. When it comes to software I frequently just dive in and paddle around until I eventually grok the concepts behind it and learn how to make it work. After a number of false starts and blind alleys, I'll acquire some proficiency. A well-written manual can be a terrific aid to the process. A badly-written manual can still be helpful once I understand enough about the software to extract useful information from material that has been badly organized, illustrated and explained. (Or out-of-date, or simply WRONG!)HTML (HyperText Markup Language) -- the language that formats web pages -- isn't well suited to my default mode of learning. But I need to update and maintain my two websites, so I felt I had to buckle down and learn the lingo. For that I needed something beyond a good manual, I needed a good textbook designed for the rank amateur.I bought Jennifer Robbins' book based on the excellent reviews posted on Amazon. I'm only up to page 80, but I am already creating HTML code that produces simple, but very serviceable web pages. Just how far and how deep I go into HTML is yet to be determined, but paging ahead in the book I can see that the topics covered go very deep indeed.The key point here is that Jennifer is an honest-to-god hands-on teacher who also has a gift for writing. She doesn't dawdle around -- you get into the real stuff pretty fast -- but she provides enough background, examples and explanation that your eyes don't cross and your brain check out. Its a delicate balance between the meat and the filling, and Jennifer manages it like an artist.Now HTML code, like all computer code, is not particularly intuitive, and when you throw in the syntax it becomes less so. But Jennifer introduces you to the elements in a logical order, a bit at a time, progressively building upon previous material to take you up to the next level of complexity. Quite quickly you acquire enough skill to produce pages that have a bit of polish.This text does NOT teach you how to use any of the many web-page-creation programs that are out there. This book introduces you to the bedrock code that underlies all web pages, however created. In that respect it is less 'E-Z', but more durable and broadly applicable. There are a thousand ways to create web pages. There are more web-page-creation tools all the time and they are constantly evolving. But the code they produce, the root HTML, is a far more stable product, and to understand it is to truly understand what is being created.Finally -- and this is important -- Jennifer provides exercises at the end of each chapter that are meaningful tests of your comprehension and retention, while not so challenging as to be discouraging. Long ago I learned that if you haven't worked the exercises you haven't learned the material, so I find it particularly gratifying that the exercises are well designed and useful.Buy this book, work through it page by page and chapter by chapter, and you will not regret the time or the money spent.

The many 5-star reviews here by web design experts led me to choose this book to help build my website. But this is the viewpoint of a beginning web-builder, albeit someone who has had a lot of experience of learning from books. The book is NOT about user experience, the aesthetics of web design, search engine optimization, etc.. After a sprinkling of facts about the history, workings, and administration of the web in the first chapters, it is all about techniques of generating text and image content with HTML5 and CSS3. A couple of concluding chapters briefly introduce JavaScript. HTML5's role is proposed to be confined to structure or semantics (meaning), leaving all formatting to CSS (except, of course, some default text formatting, else text could not display in HTML alone). This is in contrast with earlier versions of HTML, where one was not discouraged from using as much HTML formatting as allowed before formatting with CSS.Jennifer Robbins is a remarkable teacher. She anticipates the questions and misunderstandings some readers may have, and deals with them before they become obstacles. Although she calls this a beginner's book, she writes for aspiring web professionals, and her thoroughness reflects this intent. The exercises are well-designed, and the end-of-chapter questions helpful in determining if you really"got it" (answers are in the back of the book). I like the many references to books and web articles extending the scope of her book; she seems well-informed on the cutting edge of web design. Her writing is clear, and difficult concepts are well-explained. Digital files of all the book's examples are available on O'Reilly's website. (I appreciate that O'Reilly does not require a code to download the files. Actually, it's a good marketing strategy, because a lot of people will buy O'Reilly's books when they find out how good all their stuff is!) I love this book!