HTML, XHTML & CSS For Dummies

I do not recommend this book for two reasons. First, the organization of the book is flawed. Instead of giving readers “hands on” activities that will illustrate the ease of web page creation, the authors begin with a long list of abstract definitions of various concepts and parts of a web page. They discuss more advanced topics like site maps and navigation long before the reader needs to understand the creation and use of those features of web pages.

Someone learning web site creation should first be taught how to create a single page. That will permit the introduction of the basic components of a web page (e.g., Head, title, body). It is not necessary to introduce advanced concepts such as website navigation until the reader show more creates a second page. Explaining the creation of site maps can wait until a third or fourth page is created.

Second, the book is hard, at points almost impossible, to read. The authors decision to render coding samples using a lightly hued colored text on a colored background, ignores the basic principle that black text on a white background is most easily read. In addition, the text in the coding examples is quite small. I was unable to decipher the examples without resourting to a magnifying glass.

The are several far better introductions to the topics discussed in this book. show less