[Book Review] Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

I first stumbled across the Head First series of books last year when somebody showed me Head First Design Patterns. In case you have not heard of these particular books let me enlighten you... They take serious topics in software and teach them to you in a wacky, humorous, graphic-heavy style. Imagine a dry university text - Head First books are just the opposite. Lots of pictures, characters, a storyline, plots even! Lots of exercises and fun stuff to do.

My first reaction was to balk. "Pah, this can't be a serious book" and I associated them with the "teach yourself the latest complex technology in 10 seconds" type of book but I was wrong. These books are very good and they teach you best practices.

So, I decided I wanted to do some web development, and Ajax seemed really funky, and after a quick search on Amazon I saw that Head First did an Ajax book so I bought it. To my dismay I found myself lost in chapter 1! In my three years of developing web sites for a living I never really learnt anything other than how to use Front Page and how to do funky web layouts with graphics. So, I figured that I should do things properly and learn HTML. I felt a bit silly buying a book on HTML but sometimes you just have to stop winging it and do things properly.

I logged all the time I spent on the book and it took me 16 hours to work through it completely. I did all the exercises and I typed in most of the examples. These books are a nice quick read. Don't be put off by the size because they are filled with graphics and you can zip through them real quick.

I really enjoyed the book and I felt like I learned a lot. I managed all the exercises with ease and I was really happy with myself right up until I got to the end of the book and then I realised that I didn't quite know where to start at actually building my own site using my new skills. These books take you by the hand step by step and they are designed for absolute beginners but the downside to that approach is that they lack meatier exercises for more advanced readers. I had typed in a few lines of HTML & CSS here and there but I had not built anything from scratch.

I suppose you could say just about the same for any other tutorial-style book of this kind. You learn what you can from the book but ideally you'd follow along and build your own sample site along side it. That's what I didn't do so my next step will be to do a chapter breakdown of the book summarising the key points learned in each, and then build a simple website that utilities everything I have learned. Once I have done that I should be ready to move on.

CONCLUSION

If you're really new to HTML & CSS then Head First HTML is a must buy but be prepared to do some extra practice along side it. If you're looking for a quick refresher or a reference book, look elsewhere.