Markup Languages Books

Use this book once you have Pence's basic HTML book down. It will provide many new tools to spruce up your exist web programming.

It is a great hands on textbook. The author did a great job conveying concepts. Easy to understand especially talking about codes. However a lot of typing error and project data or instructional errors. Misspelled in a lot of places. Information inconsistency. Requires professional editing services. I think the author should continue to write these book. Pence is a good writer but need to make sure information, data or examples are consistent. It hinders the student when trying to do the projects.

This book teaches what it claims to teach. It teaches CSS 1 for everyday tasks you would perform. It also teaches you how to create entire layouts using CSS. I strongly recommend this book to those who have just learned HTML and want to go ahead. This book also gives overview of very basics of CSS 2.

The book is well structured and includes hints, tips and other similar helpful stuff along the way.

Of course reading a book does not really make you a master unless you think and work hard yourself as well. So if you know HTML then this shud be your next step.

This book covers basic CSS. It succeeds in offering a very gentle and fairly comprehensive overview of CSS1 features, with some CSS2. However, his constant warning about the lack of robust support for CSS in browsers is somewhat dated and tiring. The book is also full of annoying typos that at times prevent examples from working--a missing period here, a misplaced semi-colon there. Perhaps to make the chapters (called "Modules" here) independent, there is quite a bit of repetition of the same ideas in many chapters. The gradual introduction of CSS syntax and techniques also seems to incourage the author to use examples that mix CSS and traditional html in ways that are not good CSS practice, just apparantely oversimplified examples to make simple points about transitioning from HTML to specific CSS features. That distinction could be lost on a lot beginners who don't get a more solid understanding of how to use CSS to build more complete and consistent pages and websites. I therefore wish the author would have included more comprehensive examples, rather than lots of smaller out-of-context and disconnected ones. This book is not terrible. I just think you could probably do better now. I would give it 2 1/2 stars if I could.

I swear the author of this book goes out of his way to make its readers feel incompetent. While full of useful information, this book is also just as full of typos and inconsistancies.

Do you want to know how frustrating it is to try and re-create a page using the code given to you in a book, have the page come out looking nothing like the example in said book, then finding out the reason for the discrepency is because the author actually coded their example differently? Well there's plenty of opportunities in this book!

I now have to learn inline CSS which I believe might have been covered to some extent in this book. I can't remember. That's how badly I want to forget this book! I'm sticking with CSS for Dummies!

I'm an ASP developer with just over a year's experience. This is the first book I've read on XML, and if I have a question, it will be the first place I look.

This book has it all, except solid examples that tie it all together. I now understand how vast and capable XML is, but I haven't gained an ability to put it to any real practical use.

Items I don't agree with:
1. The book is not 500 pages ...Page 223 marks the start of Appendix A, the XML 1.0 specification. The index ends on page 345. 122 pages of reference (over 33%).
2. The book's cover states I will learn to build web applications fast. Huh? There are no sample applications, only examples of how to use the syntax being discussed.
3. The cover states that I will learn by doing, as I work on a fictional e-commerce site. Huh? There are no exercises, and there is no e-commerce site being built.
4. The cover refers to real-scenarios. Again, where are they?
5. A chapter titled, "Common Examples of XML", was really an introduction to SMIL, SVG, and WDDX. Good stuff, but not what I was expecting.

This book needs a companion to deliver all that's been promised. I still don't have a clear picture of the XML DOM, the difference between a node and an element, nor do I have an idea of where I should be using XML (instead of (or with) the technologies I'm already familiar with (i.e. ASP, ADO, and JavaScript)).

Considering how the other reviews have labeled this book #1, is there any hope? Can anyone recommend a book that's better at painting the big picture?

The book starts out nicely explaining everything and it gets you motivated. From chapter 3 onwards, 19 pages later, its all guess work. He gives pieces of information with no coherent example that shows how all these pieces fit together. Its left up to your imagination to guess how it all comes together. Once more, I had to go back to internet tutorials (which I have found to be way better than a lot of computer programming books). XML is not rocket science. If you can't write a descent book about it, you ought to think about quiting the writing profession (stick to writing code). This was a waste of my time and money; needless to say a waste of paper and ink too.

This book is a really good basic book to get started. I've enjoyed it.

Just skip all the others and buy this one. Really.

Could have been good or even great. It starts clear, correct, and well-structured. Then about a third of the way through the book (which is really half the content because the last third is an absolete printing of the XML spec) the writing gets lazy. Comprehending the material becomes an absolute chore as all structure is lost.

The first part is the best intro to XML that I've read, but it's just an intro.

For me the best part of this book was Appendix A, entitled "XML Language Basics". This should have been the first chapter in the book. But by the time I got to it, I was pretty fed up with reading about "emergent behavior" and other buzz phrases. I did get a bit of a sense of what various acronyms mean, such as SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, J2EE and so on, but the ratio of fluff to substance was too high for my taste.

There are about 230 pages of actual content that provide a high-level tour of what the author calls the "data revolution." There is a crisp and concise overview of the XML technology family, along with some examples of XML in use. There is broad yet concise description of SOAP and Web Services. Common implementations like .Net, J2EE and other vendor implementations are discussed along with some of the issues in the industry. XML Security is discussed in enough detail to give you a good grasp of the issues. The book wraps up with some ideas about where this technology could take us.

The best thing about this book is that it shows how XML and Web Services overcome many of the problems that plagued RPCs, DCOM, CORBA and RMI in a way understandable by anyone.

This book is a quick read, in the concise, bulleted, margin-annotated style of Object-oriented Technology: A Manager's Guide. There are lots of really excellent visuals. This book will not help you actually write code or implement Web Services -- it is good for a semi-technical reader, or a technical reader who wants a better grasp of the big picture. Highly recommended.

If one can't manage to complete a book in a week, then it is not a book. It is a reference that you occasionally use. XML, Web Services, and the Data Revolution by Frank P. Coyle definitely comes under my 'book' category. If one wants to learn what XML and Web Services are in a week, this is a book to read.

Lot of information yet concise presentation accomplished with self explanatory pictures depicting various XML technologies.

I bought this book based on the reviews and I made a mistake.
This book doesn't give the technical details I wanted.
If you are one of those bosses who doesn't get into details and just want to know the jargon so you can look technical when you are in meetings with more incompetent people, this is your book.

Mr. Coyle has done an excellent job in demystiying XML and Web Services. He describes the technical details in a fashion that makes it easy to understand, and comprehend on the first read. His visual examples help the reader see the network, and communication paths that takes place between XML, SOAP, and WSDL. I consider myself semi-technical, and I felt that I had a much better grasp of these concepts, and the possibilities of applying this technology after reading his book. Highly recommended.

I (marginally) do not feel ripped off. The first 9 chapters (62 pages) offer an accurate and concise intro to SAX -- the 3-star rating is for these pages... content could be improved. The API reference material (pages 63-284) is nearly worthless as content. I wish authors would stop putting detailed API documentation on books like this. For a few bucks, it's not a bad buy.

No Starch stands for no-nonsense with the book. The first part of the book is seven short chapters that introduce the API, and two more on integration and driver support. The second part of the book is a well designed reference section that isn't as graphically well presented as an O'Reilly book, but is as well organized.

The first seven chapters which walk you through the API from basic to advanced use are very well written. The code fragments are small and the illustrations are sparse but used effectively.

This is a solid piece of work. Highly recommended.

This book takes a single aspect of xml technology, SAX, and gives it a rather comprehensive coverage. The first portion of the book is a tutorial on Java programming for SAX. It helps the reader to understand the conceptual differences between processing xml using SAX as opposed to the DOM. A small application is developed in an iterative fashion to illustrate the programming issues with SAX. Some guidelines are given along the way to direct the reader in developing robust code. The examples are based in SAX 2.0. A chapter is devoted converting SAX 1.0 applications to SAX 2.0

Chapters 10 and 11 are devoted to the SAX 2.0 and SAX 1.0 APIs respectively. In these references, a real convenience is that the class names are printed on the page edge to form a thumb index. Each class or interface has a brief description of its use, the Visual Basic Equivalent, the Constructors, and Methods with coding examples and descriptions.

Since xml is increasing in importance to Java programmers, this book can be a very useful tool. However, it would be helpful if the authors gave updated information on the book web site about using the examples with Xerces 2.0 and Java 1.4. Technology moves on.

As a Java developer just getting my feet wet with SAX, I find The Book of SAX to be quite helpful and understandable. While I am not exactly a novice, I found this book to be very readable, instructive, and to comment on some other reviews I saw, original.

It is difficult to find any programming text that does not read like an translated VCR manual - however, in this case, SAX is presented fluidly and intelligently.

Additionally, the sample code was practical and well-written. I was able to use many examples almost verbatim in completing one of my own projects.

I highly recommend. And I just bought another copy for a friend.

As one of the authors of this book (and of two other books as well), until now I've never once replied to a customer review, no matter how badly I wanted to. But the negative review from "A Reader" in "an undisclosed location" contains such an inflammatory accusation that I felt that I had to reply. Not one sentence of the Book of SAX has been copied or plagarized from any source. We did _not_ include a "VERBATIM REPRINT OF THE SAX API DOCUMENTATION". If the author of this review had bothered to read the documentation, he would have seen that. And he would have also seen that we wrote original sample code to document every method and attribute of the org.xml.sax and org.xml.sax.helpers packages. If you find the tutorial "lackluster", that's fine. That's your opinion. But do not expect to make serious accusations against our integrity and belittle our efforts and get away with it.

BTW, I rated this book with 3 stars. Unfortunately I had to pick something, or I would have abstained.

This is a great DHTML reference tool. If you want a good, thorough DHTML reference, this is the package to get. I am very satisfied with this product, as it has helped largely in my DHTML scripting. I'd recommend this product to anyone who is trying to learn DHTML or is already an expert and needs a solid reference.

This is, without any doubt, the most frequently used book in my collection. Until recently, it had a permanent place on my desktop. It is a complete DHTML (and CSS) reference. It is not, as stated above, a tutorial of any kind.

The book is basically divided into 5 major sections:
(1) Objects
(2) Properties
(3) Methods
(4) Events
(5) Object Collections

Each section is thoroughly cross-referenced in exhaustive detail. You don't have to dig around four different places in the manual to answer a scripting or CSS question - everything is in one place at all times. This makes for a lot of duplication of information (its 1300+ pages give it quite a bit of heft) but frankly it's incredibly convenient.

Code examples are provided, and are generally good, but you basically need a certain level of existing understanding of JavaScript (or JScript) and the ideas behind CSS for many of them to be of significant value. If you're just getting into this stuff, this book may not be of much value - for now.

If, on the other hand, you're relatively experienced (or highly interested) in client-side scripting etc, this book will be a handy reference, especially for those who, like myself, still prefer to have paper references handy.

I have ONE major gripe - and it's a biggie. For such an exhaustive, complete resource, it completely ignores Netscape altogether.

This is a major mistake. I don't like Netscape, and I don't like developing for Netscape, but the simple fact of life in my business is that I must do so.

To be fair to Microsoft, the book is about Internet Explorer 5, and doesn't purport to be anything else. But it's such a cryin' shame to have to test every little thing on Netscape, when I have 90% of everything else right at my fingertips.

Despite this, I still give it 5 stars, though it really should be 4.5 for its lack of Netscape documentation.

This is an excellent reference book for those programmers who want a printed copy of Microsoft's DHTML. The CD is packed with great information from Microsoft's MSDN website with regards to DHTML and IE 5.0. This is NOT a tutorial on DHTML, so if that is what you are looking for, get another book. It will however help you find all the information that you need to successfully write code for web page projects related to IE 5.0. This book is exactly what it says it is!

This book IS IE DHTML programming. I personally cant read from the screen, this book is msdn.microsoft.com in book format. Though the index isnt the best, if you know what your doing, this is the book for you.

This is a good reference for IE5, but is esstentially the online reference docs printed out. There are two CDs that come with it - so the book + examples are all on there. My biggest gripes: (a) it's a reference (b) doesn't tell me about other browsers (it doesn't even distinguish between IE4/IE5) and (c) it doesn't talk about VML built into all IE5 browsers. But if you already have "Dynamic HTML - the complete reference" by O'Reilly, this is a good update for the IE5 stuff.

I work as a Web Programmer since 1997, mainly dealing with Internet Explorer.

There are few references covering Document Object Model and DHTML - The only one is MSDN.
I bought this book in 1997 and still I am keeping this just beside me in my office.
Though lacking up-to-date information, the overall DOM and DHTML scripting have not been changed much and the basics and essentials can be easily referenced in this book. New features? If you know the basics, you can easily get it in MSDN site.

I am sorry that this book is discontinued. I think this book is a must-have for every IE developer.

The reader from Raleigh, NC obviously didn't read the title of the book before purchasing. This is an "IE4" book, not a Netscape, or any other third-rate browser book. If you want cross-browser support, than DON'T buy a book that is named "IE4 Programming".

I though that this book gave decent coverage and was worth the $.

I appreciate the authors' simple style--direct-to-the-point in simple English (unlike the abstract prose used by experienced programmers who lack the gift of of sharing information in simple terms). The book has lots of examples and screen shots, and with generous lists of properties, methods and events. The indices at the back of the book serves as a reference when done with the entire book. This book is a must in every Web programmer's library.

This book has helped me a lot with designing my web page. It tells you the basics of everything that you can do with ie4. It tells you how to create your own chat rooms and how to create things that will interact with your visitors like Microsoft Agent. This book also has a reference of visual basic so if you do not know anything about visual basic then you can learn from this book or even learn some basics of javascript. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to program with the newest and hottest web browser of '98.

A fine book for Intranet development - a seriously flawed effort for Internet work. All material is covered using VB script, which is utterly worthless if your trying to develop a site that works with both Navigator and MSIE. Though you can complete every task discussed in this book with either VB or JavaScript, the authors summarily dismiss JavaScript. Don't purchase this book if you plan to develop sites that work across the browser divide!

This is a nice XML Schemas book. It goes through the material thorougly with examples. It also brings up case-scenerios that help one think about tackling the projects we are likely to encounter (or in my case currently encountering) in our XML doings.

Although there are some typos they do not glare the fine material in this book nor hinder learning.

The book helped me preparing for the IBM certificate for XML (IBM certified solution developer - XML and related technologies), thank you...

I had to create an XML schema out of an XML file that was already existing (I am sure that rarely happens:-)) and I could get the job done by reading half of this book. Would be a five star if not for the typos.

This is a much better way of learning to write XML schemas compared to formal language at the XML schema specification site.

The book does not cover very good examples on each topic specially on Datatypes. Also it is not exclusive on detailing schemas. The kind of material/information provided by this book can be read from any core xml book. XML Bible describes the Schemas very well in one chapter.

This book is worth the price for its discussion of modeling documents vs modeling data. Coming from the document world, I have found relational database types have a hard time understanding the "model" of a document schema. This book explains the document analysis process concisely, but clearly. If you work in a place that is trying to bring the document and database worlds closer together, this book is helpful.

I'm a web designer. I know CSS, HTML, and a whole load of stuff, but I wanted to learn XML and XHTML. It was recommended in other books I checked out that I should learn XML first because XHTML uses XML for it's formatting. So, after skimming through some XML books, I found this one and what an awesome book it was! I've read it- every single page, every word, and wrote a complete set of notes for my personal use on DTDs, entities, namespaces, etc.

The best thing about this book is how easy-to-read it is. Other books are huge or they're technically to advanced for me to undderstand. Everything about this book is just right: page number, explanations, langauge... It's so down-to-earth (not to mention the examples are fun).

I checked it out from the library and now I'll be looking for more books by this wonderful author! Because of this book, I know how to use XML and now I'm learning XHTML for effective web design.

A MUST buy for *WEB DESIGNERS*

This book was a waste of money for me... The title should really be "...for Managers", not Web Designers. If you need detailed how-to info skip this book.

If you want to know what XML is and does before you dive into its technical end, this is a great book! The author presents this complicated topic in a way that makes it simple and understandable.

Don't be swayed by the negative review up there at the top - If you're a programmer you should probably check out something from O'Reilly, and you should read the name of the book before you buy it. This book is aimed squarely at *web designers* and is intended to be an overview of the subject with just enough technical and spec information to get you started.

I'm halfway through the book, and I highly recommend it for anyone on the web design side of the industry who's interested in XML but not really familiar with what it is or the fundamental roots of HTML.

The book goes over what XML is and what it isn't, how it compares to HTML, how it relates to CSS and XSL, potential applications for XML, DTD's, the W3C recommendation process, and lots of other related information.

I find these many different angles quite helpful, because my perspective is limited by comparison; HTML, JavaScript, and graphics occupy the bulk of my time, and I never would have thought of some of the considerations and advantages of XML brought up in this book.

If you're a web designer, buy this book. If you're a programmer, go look for the O'Reilly book!

Well, I bought this book because by the reviews, people seemed to say that it was the most understandable xml book out there. I now realize the other books are not dificult to understand. Instead, you just have a vast number of people out there who cannot program, and rather than face that reality they have taken to balming the books. If anyone out there is a REAL programmer that needs REAL hardcore information, learn from my mistake. This book is the most understandable because it is apple juice. Anyone with any type of programming aptitude will surely find this book to be frustrating, insulting, and infuriating. I can't believe I paid for this. The auther spends an ENTIRE CHAPTER on what the X the M and the L mean. I was halfway through this book when she finally started to give some syntax. If she had given half as much information on the syntax and real world uses of XML as she did on the meaning of the letter X, this book might have actually been useful. Once again, if you have any intelegence whatsoever, this book will be an insult to you. Buy something else.

I have had NO previous experience in IT whatsoever. The book was very simple written, step by step.
I learned the basics of XHTML very quickly. Now, I am experienced web page builder and don't write codes anymore (I use web page building Applications), but believe me, I open that book almost everyday to refresh my memory.

I have had NO previous experience in IT whatsoever. The book was very simple written, step by step.
I learned the basics of XHTML very quickly. Now, I am experienced web page builder and don't write codes anymore (I use web page building Applications), but believe me, I open that book almost everyday to refresh my memory.

There is a very good 150 page book in here waiting to get out of this bloated expensive tome. Unfortunately, the endless padding just makes information retrieval extremely slow. Not content to show us bits of code to illustrate particular points, Holzner gives us complete pages of irrelevent mark-up almost every time. Rather than using a tabular approach to show what elements can be used with each tag, the author dribbles through the entire descriptive list in every chapter. The cardinal sin, though, is Holzners repeated use of depricated elements and tags in his illustrations. Surely a book on XHTML should show the XHTML way of doing things rather than harking back to earlier standards. Yes, I know the tags still work in most cases, but they won't for much longer and there is ALWAYS an alternative approved XHTML way of doing things. The book is also very poorly designed: symbols for the various browsers and W3C standards would have made things much clearer. A huge disappointment.

I liked the immediate solutions menu at the beginning of each chapter that list the most likely sought problems and the pages where you can find the answers. Also, the chapters on JavaScript were informative.

On the down side, why would anyone write an XHTML book w/ out concentration on cross-browser functionality? Many of the examples were solutions for just IE or for just Netscape. The whole point of validated XHTML is to reach the widest possible audience which means coding to a defined standard; browser specific code is mostly pointless. Also, as someone mentioned, the use of deprecated tags in examples caused me to be wary of the code throughout the whole book. Finally, why wait till page 503 to cover CSS? That should have been demonstrated early on to discourage the use of inline formatting within pages. And the CSS coverage, a chapter crucial to web development (ie, separation of data and presentation), was weak.

I guess for someone starting out it's ok to use this as a guide. But I urge anyone reading this book to avoid the use of deprecated tags or your web pages will render different ways in difft browsers.

After browsing through this book, I quickly went back and started reading it from the beginning. This is a great book for beginners in web authoring and an excellent ref. for experienced authors. As a self taught web author, I have purchased and read many books. For those just beginning, this book is worth the price. As for advanced authors, this book is a valuable ref. which includes the the newer XHTML 1.1 .. check this out. You will not be regret it. Well structured and complete and easy to read and understand. You will comprehend all that you read.

Despite the "Beginning HTML" in the title, this small horror is a densely packed text of incomprehensible jargon.

This book is only useful for balancing wobbly table legs and for teaching writers how NOT to write a reference work / tutorial.

I bought it based on the title, not the contents. (It was shrink-wrapped at a brick-and-mortar bookstore) Had I seen a sample of the text, I would have reshelved it hurriedly or offered a dime to buy it for firewood.

As a reference work for web designers, or a tutorial for beginners, it ranks below any other book I've seen on the subject.

APPENDICES:
1) The promised CSS is scattered throughout the book, with no CSS reference guide in the appendices.
2) The appendices for HTML and XHTML describe each tag's parameters in such a way as to leave one wondering how to use them, and what each tag and parameter does.

EXAMPLES:
The authors clearly did not proofread the version that reached the printers, or the editors made unexpected, inexcusable last-minute cutbacks. This is most obvious in photo captions that ask us (unbelievably) to find the differently colored text in identical B&W screenshots (p. 143), and in examples of JPEG artifacts/compression (p. 108) and pixelating (p. 106) that are unnoticeable because the example photographs have been shrunken far too much or carelessly created.

INDEX:
Carelessly assembled, neglecting common terms like "mouseover".
LANGUAGE:
Professorial pointification and obfuscation rather than real advice to beginners or helpful reference for experts. Reads like a fillibuster performed by a student defending his masters' dissertation.
For example, what beginner could make use of this entry in the appendices?
(p. 353)
"The param element allows you to set run-time values for objects that have been inserted into a document. Required attributes: type: specifies the MIME type of the resource specified in the value attribute when the valuetype attribute is set to ref; value: specifies the actual value associated with the parameter"
...and so on.

Sentences are needlessly wordy, overly technical, and filled with passive verbs. In short, the writing bores and frustrates more than an afternoon spent with an enthusiastic life insurance salesman.

For example, from page 352: : "disabled": Sets the control as "disabled"; "value": Specifies the value for the option that will be sent to the server.
Why would anyone whose first language is English say "as" instead of "to"? What writer uses a word ("disabled") in the same word's definition? What "control" are the authors talking about? Why was ink so valuable that the authors couldn't give examples these options in use? What are the possible values for "value"?

Buy this book only if your goal is to frighten a web designer's boss away from learning what the designer does for a living....or if you need something slim yet heavy for flinging at life insurance salesmen.

Found this book to be a concise guide to learning html, css, and xhtml conforming to the latest standards. I had dabbled with web pages before, and though I could eventually hack something together, I knew it wasn't the way the pros did it. This book provided a good conceptual framework on how to separate presentation from content, the key reason to use CSS.

Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML: Modern Guide and Reference by David Schultz and Craig Cook is an excellent beginners introduction to HTML and CSS. Through each of the eleven chapters the authors walk through the basics and foundation of HTML. For those who are just treading in the waters of HTML and CSS, this book will help you understand the tools available to you as you craft your markup. You will learn about the tags available, their available attributes and purposes, and how to finely tune these into a semantic layout that ultimately gives your content more meaning.

Chapter 1 is our quick history lesson and introduction to HTML. They give background and insight into the goals and purposes of HTML, and how these were shifted during the browser wars and the battle for browser dominance and market share. They introduce the different versions of HTML available, and what they mean for your markup and the rendering inside of the browser. As CSS is discussed, there is also a discussion on keeping a clean separation of content and presentation. Chapter 1 lets us see the big picture and evolution of HTML.

Chapter 2 builds the foundation for the rest of the chapters. This chapter discusses the basics of XHTML and CSS. The building blocks discussed here will be addressed in each and every subsequent chapter of the book. Things such as tags, elements, attributes, and formatting. We are also given a snapshot view of what comprises an XHTML document, the doctype, the HTML element, and the document tree. All of this plays into understanding the fundamentals of CSS, cascade, and inheritance. We now have our history lesson and basic constructs in place, it's time to take a look at the rest of the pieces to the puzzle.

Chapters 3 and 4 cover a large territory. From constructing a useable head section, to walking step by step through many of the available HTML elements available to you as you put your content together. With discussion of each element, you are given detailed instructions of how and when it should be used, with an exhaustive list of its available attributes. CSS is briefly discussed, but will be re-introduced in a later chapter after we have our content constructed.

Chapter 5 is all about images. This chapter gives a brief primer on how digital images work, and what are the formats you can use within your content. Images can serve different purposes: icons, decoration, background, or context. Each of these are discussed with information on how to place them accordingly with CSS or the img tag.

Chapter 6 is all about linking. You are introduced to the a tag, its available attributes, and how you can create different types of links. Textual links, anchor links, and linking an image are all discussed.

Chapter 7 is all about tables. Despite what you may hear from others, tables have a very good semantic use in regards to tabular data (who would have thought?). However, tables are also misunderstood in relation to the tags and attributes. It is important to build tables with accessibility in mind, and this chapter goes over some of the elements that haven't received as much exposure. These include, but are not limited to: caption, colgroup, and tbody. This chapter will give you the information necessary to build a powerful and semantically rich table.

Chapter 8 discusses all of the little details to building a usable and accessible form. Just as with tables, there are some elements that are often forgotten about when building forms. This chapter does a great job of covering all of the necessary components for a form, and how to structure them. Form elements are rendered with the underlying operating system, so the end of this chapter discusses CSS and some of the ways you can spruce up the look of your forms. This is to be used with caution, as forms are rendered differently in each browser.

Chapters 9 and 10 discuss the other 2 pieces of the trinity of the front end: CSS and JavaScript. These chapters are meant to be brief primers, and will most likely whet your appetite to learn more about each aspect. They are also placed here to give you a good foundation as the final chapter will roll everything up into a case study.

Chapter 11 is the end of the journey. What good would the book be if you couldn't put what you have learned into practice? This chapter creates the fictional Spaghetti & Cruft website (you have to read the book to find out the meaning of the name). This chapter starts with the design process, moves to the building process, and then polishes it off by adding enhancements with CSS and JavaScript. The humorous name aside, this chapter is one of the most valuable chapters of the entire book. This final chapter brings the book to a close, and with it leaves you a solid foundation as you continue your journey of building other sites.

Conclusion
Many would argue that they don't need to learn HTML, that is what a WYSIWYG is for. This book shows you the value of understanding the history, the basics, and the semantics of HTML. It is important to note that nothing found in this book is earth-shattering, however, if you are a beginner and new to HTML, this book will give you the proper start you need to begin developing right away. If you are moving away from the reliance of a WYSIWYG, you may be surprised at many of the elements available to you that are covered in this book.

I ordered this book along with Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML. I was worried based on reviews that this might be a little over my head. My only program experience is with VBA macro writing. I wanted Head First's book to protect myself from getting lost.

What I found is there was no problem understanding this well-presented and clear text. In fact, I much prefer it to the "dummy downed" Head First book. Had I to do it over, this would have been my only purchase.

Every master was once an apprentice; the beginner must start at the beginning. For the author of an introductory text on a technical subject, the challenge is to adopt the "beginner's mind," which is characterized in Zen practice as "is the mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgments and prejudices." The teacher of novices must clear his mind and place himself in the mind of the student who knows little or nothing about a subject. He must be able to transmit complex concepts in clear, non-technical language and provide enough information to make the subject understandable, yet not overwhelm the student with too much information or information that is not pertinent.

The first two chapters of "Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML: Modern Guide and Reference" satisfies the requirements of a beginner's book quite well. The language is clear, concise, and devoid of jargon. The remainder of the book is quite uneven, probably due to the publisher's decision to employ two authors for the book. Craig Cook (the author of chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 11) is more than capable of communicating technical information using plain language. His prose is concise and accurate, yet he maintains a gentle, witty tone that is ideal for making the neophyte feel at ease with new material. David Schultz is much less adept at maintaining the `beginner's mind.' His prose is often convoluted and awkward, making it difficult to decipher the terms he attempts to explain.

Chapter 4 is an excellent overview of the basic structure of a semantically structured web document. For someone looking for an introduction to HTML and CSS fundamentals, the book is worth buying for this chapter alone. It would also serve a more experienced hand as a concise guide to the proper use of HTML elements.

Chapters 3, 6, and 7 all have a common weakness: the author fails to provide clear definitions and explanations for terms. An example, from p. 164: "charoff: Specifies in pixels or as a percentage how far the alignment should be adjusted to the first character to align on. This requires the use of the align attribute with the value set as char." Contrast this definition with one penned by Cook, p.211: "disabled='disabled': When present, disables the control so that it cannot receive focus and its value cannot be modified. Many browsers will display disabled controls a `grayed-out' state. The value of a disabled control is not submitted."

It appears that Mr. Cook devoted a considerable amount of thought to writing his definitions, while Mr. Schultz was content to restate the official specifications. Cook takes the time to carefully explain a term, giving examples of how it is used in the real world. His definitions & explanations indicate a deep and nuanced understanding of the subject material.

Chapter 10 presents an introduction to JavaScript. Appearing out of place in a book on beginning HTML and CSS, one chapter on JavaScript is simply inadequate to explain even the rudiments of this powerful (but often misused) tool. This space could have been better used in covering CSS positioning in more detail and providing more visual examples.

Chapter 11 is a solid walkthrough in putting together a basic website, from the design process through to final markup. This chapter pulls together what has been presented in the rest of the book and would certainly enable a beginner to create an attractive & functional website from scratch.

Finally, the book provides four appendices. The usefulness of these appendices varies widely. Appendix A is an XHTML 1.o Strict reference: it would be useful but for a complete lack of examples. Appendix B covers color names and hex values: does anyone actually use these? HTML colors are notoriously hideous and their use should be avoided. Appendix C covers special characters: this is a good reference to have. Appendix D covers CSS browser support: again, a useful reference.

But why is there no glossary? A glossary of terms is ESSENTIAL in a beginner's book. Please, leave out the scary HTML colors and give us a glossary!

Despite its shortcomings, "Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML: Modern Guide and Reference" is a useful book for a person needing to understand the fundamental concepts and application of HTML and CSS. The publishers would have served their readers better by providing a consistent authorial voice throughout the book, including more thorough coverage of CSS positioning and layout, and providing more high-quality graphical examples. This book is a good bet for the beginner who wants to learn the fundamentals of HTML and CSS to create well-structured and usable websites.