Title: HTML Author: Chuck Musciano & Bill Kennedy Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pages: 410 Price: US $29.95, Can. $42.95 (soft-bound) ISBN: 1-56592-175-5 Audience: anyone dealing with web documents Rating: A+
Self-proclaimed "definitive guides" usually elicit my wriest smile as I pass them by. This one, however, deserves the title.Besides thoroughly covering the technical aspects of HTML, this book provides keen insight and advice on how things do, and should work, as well as design and implementation issues of creating web pages.
This book is not an introduction to visual design; nor is it a panacea for your web page flaws. It does, however, contain the best, overall collection of advice I've seen on using HTML to create useful, appealing web pages.
The authors approach web page design in an extremely practical manner. They point out dangers in many commonly held beliefs, and have the good sense not to try to treat the web like print media with hypertext thrown in.
Two HTML quick references are included - one in an appendix and one as a tear-out "desktop reference". The only thing missing is a Netscape color table. The authors are already hard at work on the second edition, since this is one of the fastest evolving areas around.
This is one of the best 5 books of the year, and one every web page developer and maintainer should own and use regularly.
This is one of the Top 5 UNIX books of 1996.
Last updated:Copyright 1998 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.