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Authors: Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy Year: 1996 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Price: $29.95 By Lawr Michaels Second Edition: The next version of O'Reilly & Associates Definitive Guide, with up-dated specs on the latest HTML standards and details about the latest browsers, will come out in May. Whether you are a Webmaster of major or minor proportions, you will need an HTML reference book. HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is still, for the time being anyway, the programming language used when creating a site on the Web. Since creating Web sites is such a hot business, logically there's a proliferation of "How To" books on HTML and creating Web Sites. To tell you the truth, I have a bunch (six, to be precise) and I refer to only one for coding questions: HTML: The Definitive Guide. It's not the newest or the latest, it's just my favorite. For the archivists, HTML: The Definitive Guide is one of a catalogue of Internet books published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. You may know the name O'Reilly & Associates: They were responsible for starting the Internet Site/ISP GNN. GNN, which was recently purchased by AOL, carved its Internet niche by originally reviewing sites and games on the Net, grading them, and reporting their findings online. ORA has been around. It's a pretty safe bet that an O'Reilly book is Internet savvy. In case the very notion of phrases like "embedded HTML tags," makes you want to run for cover, authors Musciano and Kennedy lure you right back to your keyboard with their simple explanations (and if you're dying to know what "embedded HTML tags" are right now, your answer is below). The idea of programming might seem intimidating... The idea of programming might seem intimidating, but as Computers/Internet has said before, once you get the hang of it, HTML is a simple straightforward programming language. Still, Musciano and Kennedy never talk down to their audience. In fact, you'll find that as your understanding of HTML increases with the flow of the book, the writing and concepts presented get more sophisticated. Since the book is a reference guide, many users will use it just for that. When you wish to know, for example, how to create a list of items on your site, you search the index and find what you want (Un-Ordered, Ordered and Definition Lists can be found on page 33) and that's it. Plus, the book includes a handy triptych quick reference card that lists all the tags, appropriately categorized. To show you just how clear the book's prose is, here's a sample: "HTML is an embedded language: you insert the language's directions, or tags into the same document that you and your readers load into a browser to view. The browser uses the information inside the HTML tags to decide how to display or otherwise treat the subsequent contents of your HTML document." (p. 20)Making information accessible is the single most important quality of HTML "Making information accessible is the single most important quality of HTML. The language's excellent collection of text style and formatting tools helps you organize your information into documents readers quickly understand, scan, and extract, possibly with automated browser agents." (p. 209) As mentioned, there are a number of books out there to help explain the use of HTML. And as we move up through standards of HTML, the books get longer and longer. For most needs, this one still gives a comprehensive look: The authors tell what the problem is, what the tag to solve the problem is, an example of the code simply displayed, and then an illustration of what the resulting code will look like. And, it is all done in simple, but not condescending English. The authors also clearly define coding that is browser specific. That is, there are certain HTML commands that will produce a certain result when viewed by Internet Explorer, but will look different when viewed by Netscape. For the uninitiated Web developer, this is essential information. Finally, just as there are loads of books about HTML, there are also a number of software products whose peddlers claim you don't need to know anything about programming to create a Web page using their product. That's a nice idea, but eventually, if you are creating a site from scratch, you are going to need a basic reference book to tell you what the commands are and what they do. When that happens, this is the book to get. Lawr Michaels is among the top 15 fantasy sports analysts in the country. |
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