Web Developer's Cookbook [Paperback]

Web Developer's Cookbook is a beefy 975 page book that includes 301 "recipes": 100 PHP recipes, 101 JavaScript recipes, and 100 CSS recipes that are well explained and that can be tailored to your own requirements. The author claims each one has been developed and debugged and will save you a lot of time. Also, HTML5 and CSS3 features are used in various recipes, making this book more "up-to-date" with newer CSS and HTML standards. The book even mentions the new Microsoft Metro interface and Windows 8 (at the time of this review, Windows 8 is still months away from release).

The PHP recipes (part II of the book) include text processing (1-10), image handling (11-20), content management (21-30), forms and user input (31-40), "the intenet" (41-50), chat and messaging (51-60), MySQL, sessions, and cookies (61-70), APIs, RSS, and XML (71-80), incorporating JavaScript (81-90), and "diverse solutions" (91-100). The JavaScript recipes (Part III of the book) include "core recipes" (1-18), location and dimensions (19-30), visibility (31-42), movement and animation (43-52), chaining and interaction (53-59), menus and navigation (60-69), text effects (70-76), audio and visual effects (77-83), cookies, ajax, and security (84-89), forms and validation (90-95), and solutions to common problems (96-101). The CSS recipes (Part IV of the book) include manipulating objects (1-19), text and typography (20-32), menus and navigation (33-38), page layout (39-45), visual effects (46-57), dynamic objects (58-75), dynamic text and typography (76-85), dynamic interaction (86-90), incorporating JavaScript (91-93), and superclasses (94-100). As you can see, there is A LOT in this book.

Note that this is not a tutorial book for learning PHP, HTML, JavaScript, or CSS. However, the recipes are explained in detail, and one of the great benefits of that is that you will very likely learn some new things and pick up some new ideas from the code explanations, so in this regard this book can be a very good learning book, even worthy of reading/skimming through it all to make sure that you understand how everything is done. By reading the explanations of the recipes and examining the code, you can improve your knowledge about things like PHP functions, regular expressions, web client/server interaction, fighting spam, form validation, security, JavaScript, CSS, and more.

You can use the "recipes" simply by including one or more of three main files, one php file (which contains the PHP recipes), one js file (which contains the JavaScript recipes), and one css file (which contains the CSS recipes). Of course you can also create your own files to include with just the recipes you use (but some recipes rely on others so make sure any dependencies are also included in any of your custom include files).

The recipes may be used in your own projects, and you may modify them, without giving any attribution (though you can if you want). Using these recipes can saves time from "reinventing the wheel".

A companion site is given, where all recipes can be downloaded, along with example files to experiment/play with, though you'll need a web server with PHP, but you can easily run one on your desktop by installing one of the packages that make it easy (more in chapter 1).

One thing I would have liked to see is more discussion about performance issues. Some of the PHP recipes seem like they may be CPU intensive, like the spell checking recipe (PHP #8) and some of the recipes that use regular expressions in loops (PHP #3). I also found some inaccuracies/typos, but they were relatively few and minor. There were also a few instances of what I would consider "bad advice" (like suggesting you can do something that results in corrupted HTML (PHP #49). However, in the grand scheme of things these issues do not detract much from the overall value of the book.

Even if you just use a few recipes from the book, this book could pay for itself in the time saved from "reinventing the wheel" or from preventing a security "disaster" that you may not have otherwise prevented by writing your own recipe. You'll probably also discover some techniques, methods, and solutions to problems that that you might not have otherwise thought of (which is always a good thing for a web developer with jobs to do and problems to solve).

Overall this 975 page book contains A LOT of useful "recipes" (which you can modify if needed) with a great potential to learn a lot just by reading the book and studying the recipes & explanations. 5 stars overall.

DISCLOSURE: I was sent a free book for review.

Just got the books few days ago, while skimming through the chapters, I was thinking aha.. I can use this, this and that in my new application. Lots of the recipes are very easy to use and save lots of your time as developer.
The first book I bought for Robin Nixon was HTML5 for iOS and Android Mobile, it was a beginner guide to mobile apps programming and I am still referring to that book almost in regular bases. You can imagine what I will do with this cookbook!
I really recommend it for anyone who wants clean, fast and proven code ready to use.

Professional coders develop personal libraries of software modules for reuse. This saves time and effort as the modules are tested and future changes need only be applied once. The "Cookbook" is just the thing needed to start a young coder's library or extend an old dog's. Buy this book now!

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