Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

Posted January 18th, 2006 by Taran

I always worry when I look at an HTML book. I worry that I'm wasting my time, that it will be the same old stuff in a slightly different way to avoid copyright infringement. I worry that it will be boring, that it will be unreadable, that I will want to set it on fire and dance around it naked. When I went to the post office yesterday to collect the book, cracked the box and saw the cover, all of this ran through my mind. I stopped at a Chinese restaraunt on the way back, ordered lunch and studied the cover as I waited for the food. There's a pretty girl on the cover, smiling at me as if she knows that I'm worried about all of these things. A reassuring smile with the head cocked to her left; cocky, self assured. The cover makes it look like her feet, squeezed into square black shoes, are on the inside back cover of the book. She has perfect teeth. Her hair is cut like my girlfriend has hers cut. She has her hands on her hips in defiance.

She knows something. That's what that body language means. She knows something. I know women who do that. She knows something that I don't know.

So I open the book, sipping on a glass of water and before I know it, the food is gone, the cheesecake I never order has been eaten and the last of the coffee makes it's way past my tonsils.

Someone finally wrote a good book on HTML, CSS & XHTML.

Well, OK, not good. Great. No, not great. The complete opposite of 'sucking badly', whatever that is. I know this stuff, learned it the hard way before people wrote books and all we had were hanging tags to debug. I remember an internet before Cascade Style Sheets and XHTML. I remember when the web was simple, when everything was 2 dimensional, and when everything looked the same. CSS and XHTML changed the web, and this book... this book redefines what a book on learning web design is in much the same way.

It starts off slowly, easily bringing the early concepts of what needs to be known into the Introduction - and then it does something novel - it takes the reader by the hand and rationalizes with them to sit down and read the rest of the book - telling people a method in which to read the book which will keep their interest. That's actually the way I used to teach this stuff, which has me looking forward to seeing more books in the Head First Series - at one point I thought that it would be a perfect course book, and then I realized that a person wouldn't need a teacher if they followed the advice. Which I like.

The woman on the cover has a right to look the way she does. Elisabeth and Eric Freeman did a wonderful job in the writing. The illustrations are humorous, and they are sticky - you will remember what you read because of the combination of illustrations and text. The exercises may take time. Do them. You may not learn everything in 24 hours, and you don't have to be a dummy to enjoy this book. This is a complete beginner web course with some of the advanced (read 'cool'!) stuff that you can do.

Weighing in at 694 pages (which has me guessing the height of the woman on the cover at 5'7", and the broad stripes simply make her look shorter), this book could be daunting to some, but the cover and the contents make for exceedingly light reading, and it puts the onus on the reader for learning without the normally associated weight. As a former instructor at the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies (UWI SCS), who taught the first web design courses for UWI SCS - I wish my students had this book. In fact, I wish the curriculum was from this book instead of the Frontpage stuff I had to work around so that students could actually learn stuff.

If you put half the amount of work in working with this book that you would with standard books related to the same topics, you will not only be good, you will remember this stuff.

If you use the book, let me know what you do with the StarBuzz coffee examples. :-)

You want to learn web design? If you sign up for a course, you can get a certificate. If you use this book, you will be able to do it. If you want a certificate, take the course. If you want to get a good headstart on all the people who are not buying this book, then you have to get this book. At $34.95, it's the cheapest web course out there. And with the price of Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (Head First) at $23.07 on Amazon right now, you can do here more with a cheap PC and internet connection with your own time than you can get with some antiquated curriculum. This knowledge is worthwhile, will last, and will allow you to explore your potential. If you're serious and want to really know how to use HTML, CSS and XHTML - get this book. No others. This one. Really.

This can take you from being some blogger meta site junkie to having your own site - looking the way you want it to. This is the start to perhaps your own small business. Maybe it will help you set up that NGO site so that you can change the world. Or maybe, if you try really hard - by not reading it - maybe it will weigh down your bookshelf like another lost dream.

(Also see the O'Reilly Catalog)

The people at HeadFirstLabs have my respect and admiration, neither of which comes easily. Thumbs up!