Sams Teach Yourself HTML, CSS, and JavaScript All in One [Paperback]

I never really thought of myself as a prissy Goldilocks, but I recently realized that these "Teach Yourself" books tend to be either too easy or too hard. I recently read Sams Teach Yourself HTML and CSS in 24 Hours (Includes New HTML 5 Coverage) (8th Edition) and found it to be too simplistic. But this book is truly *just right*.

Self-paced HTML books are a commodity: they've been around for years and they're pretty much all alike. But there are good ones and bad ones.

I like this book for two main reasons:

* I like the gradient. It starts off simple and then picks up the tempo very nicely. I like this, because it gives me more content that I can really sink my teeth into. If I just wanted a list of HTML tags I could search online and find what I was looking for. But I want an explanation of the concepts and best practices. I want comparisons of different techniques. This book does a nice job of this.

* I like the all-in-one approach of this book. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, it works well. This book delivers a good balance of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all in one book. That's great, because a good web page really needs all three of these elements.

I write technical documentation for a living, so I am a tough critic. I don't often encounter technical publications that make me nod and say, "nicely done, my good author". But I approve of the job that Julie Meloni did with this book. Nicely done.

There are way too many books available on HTML/CSS/JavaScript. In fact, I think it takes some courage on the part of any author to put a lot of time into writing "yet another" book on the topic. A new book better have something to offer that makes it stand out.

The strength of this "Teach Yourself" book is its organization. The wrong way to write a book like this would be to have three main sections, separately covering HTML, Cascading Stylesheets, and JavaScript. Instead, these topics are nicely interwoven, with brief introductions to all three at the beginning of the book, followed by frequent returns to each as the concepts become increasingly sophisticated.

For example, chapter 5 covers the basics of lists, AND looks at how to use CSS to style those lists. Chapter 7 covers internal and external links, AND how to use CSS to style those links. Later in chapter 11, lists and links are revisited as the reader learns how to work with image maps, as well as how the CSS box model (introduced in chapter 10) can affect lists. It is this frequent "returning to previous topics" that helps me better understand technical material.

Most of the JavaScript content is reserved for the second half of the book, but again is taught in small doses: chapter 13 teaches how to use JavaScript to display random content on a web page, chapter 15 teaches about JavaScript and the Document Object Model, chapter 26 uses JavaScript for processing HTML forms, and so on.

All in all, I highly recommend this book if you are a complete beginner, or if (like me) you know a little bit and want to learn more.

So, why 4 stars instead of 5? The book purports to include "HTML5 Coverage". To be honest, though, this "coverage" is extremely weak. Now, granted, HTML5 is still under development. However, the author fails to mention some of the fairly well established HTML5 tags that I expected to see. For example, in the section "Integrating Multimedia Into Your Website", there is no mention of the new <audio> and <video> tags that are supported by all of the major web browsers. Personally, I think the "HTML5 Coverage" stamped on the front of the book was more of an afterthought, as an attempt to snag a few more readers. Similarly, many of the new structural tags such as <header>, <footer>, and <section> get no mention anywhere.

Should this matter to you? Personally, I think this book has so much going for it in terms of its content organization that you can go ahead and learn plenty about HTML/CSS/JavaScript by using this book "as is", and then do a little work on your own to learn how to upgrade your knowledge for an HTML5 world. But if HTML5 knowledge is essential to you, you definitely need to look elsewhere.

From the rumors I've heard, Microsoft is trying to push JavaScript as the programming language for Windows 8. I hope not. C# is pure awesome, but that's besides the point. If that is true, you will want to wrap your skills around JavaScript, and this is a really nice place to start. The Sams books are always top rate for easy, comprehensive instruction. I loathe to go anywhere else.

The chapters on HTML (and a bit of XHTML) and CSS are excellent as well. Those take up the first half of the book, and are covered in depth.

For someone first getting in to Web Programming, this is a fine start. It covers everything, from finding a hosting solution to coding for enhanced readability. You'd be hard pressed to find a gentler, more effective introductory guide.

For someone more familiar with Web Programming, who might want to update their skills, or might be coming from a different scripting language, such as Perl or VB Script, the content is very well organized for you to jump strictly to what you need.

Most of the developers in my office (except the one who hates books) have borrowed my copy for a day or two, then bought a copy for themselves.