Skip to content

{ Category Archives } books

This category contains comments on and reviews of books.

Web Guru Guide to JavaScript, by Stanek and Watters

Summary: The best introduction to JavaScript that I’ve seen so far.
The Web Guru Guide to JavaScript is an introduction to programming using JavaScript. The target audience is undergraduate students without much programming experience.
JavaScript is the most misunderstood programming language in the world. The authors do a good job of clarifying the advantages of using JavaScript, [...]

Exploring Web Design, by Vest, Crowson, and Pochran

Summary: A decent, but relatively shallow, introduction to design for the web.
Exploring Web Design claims to be “not so much a ‘how to’ book, as a ‘why’ book”, and I wish that it were so. The book is obviously aimed at the undergraduate market (it has “review questions” at the end of each chapter), and [...]

Learning PHP5, by David Sklar

Recommendation: Buy this book (for a gentle introduction to PHP for the non-programmer).
The tag line for this book is “A Pain-Free Introduction to Building Interactive Web Sites”, and it’s accurate. This is one of the best books that I’ve seen for non-programmers interested in learning programming concepts. All of the material is written from a [...]

The Web Wizard’s Guide to XHTML, by Cheryl M Hughes

Recommendation: Buy this book for a gentle, colorful and clear introduction to XHTML and a bit of CSS.
I recieved this book as a review copy, and it immediately captivated my attention. If you know nothing about XHTML/CSS and want a good introduction, this is the book to buy! Hughes provides just enough context to make [...]

Photoshop Masking & Compositing, by Katrin Eismann

Recommendation: buy this book.
I received this book as a review copy last year. It wasn’t a book that I had explicitly requested, so I let it sit for a few months before I read it.
This book will change the way that you use Photoshop.
Masking, the ability to highlight portions of an image for effects, is [...]