5 comments about CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions.

1. Not a beginner's book and thank god for that - beginners should start online anyway.
   
   If you've been working with CSS for a while but have some nagging questions that never seem to get answered about the tricky stuff like certain layouts and centering, this is the place to go. Andy Budd appears to possess that rare quality that makes for an excellent how-to author which is a deep awareness of just how hard it was to come by his own solutions to CSS issues and focus on those in his book rather than just reiterating stuff you could get from w3schools and peppering it with the occasional tip that's useful.



2. I'm a developer with minimal experience designing web pages "by hand." Most of my work on the front-end includes using built in templates and designers to do the front-end magic for me.
   
   I decided to change all that and picked up this book. In a couple of days I was up and running creating some pretty cool front-end designs...plus, the advice in this book matched almost all the advice I was getting from one of our top front-end guys.



3. This book has some useful information and is really targeted to the hardcore CSSers, who already know the basics (& a little bit more). It outlines clearly many topics and use some good examples (with some minor typos). If you are a beginner, I would not really recommend the book as it may overwhelm you with too technical stuff and exceptions. A good way in learning is not to provide exceptions at the beginning of a learning experience, but more towards the end. But that always happens with folks who know their stuff too well. So, get your basics and foundation right first, know about CSS and THEN go for this publication.



4. This was the first CSS book that I purchased. I was always hesitant to purchase a book on CSS because most of the resources that I've found have been mostly beginner's tutorials or instruction and I felt that I had at least a "beyond beginner's" understanding of CSS. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm an expert at CSS, but at least mid-level to advanced. However, this book had some previous good recommendations from amazon.com so I bit the bullet and bought it. I must say that I was NOT disappointed!
   
   This book starts off with a very quick introduction/recap of CSS basics including good code structure and organization, validation, DOCTYPES, common selectors including IDs and classes, pseudo-classes, and the advanced selectors such as universal, child, attribute and more, and some wonderful reference on the specificity and inheritance, or the "Cascade", the core of CSS. Although this introduction is provided, it is relatively short at about 25 pages and I would suggest a good working understanding of these basics first, as it will help understand the rest of the book easier as opposed to trying to learn CSS for the first time from this book. The following chapter is another quick 15 pages with on "Visual Formatting Model Recap" including the Box Model and Positioning, two EXTREMELY important concepts to understand CSS properly. Although it is short, it is an extremely powerful section.
   
   Chapter 3 finally jumps head first into the code with "Background Images and Image Replacement." With the movement towards "Web 2.0? websites, one of the most common features you'll see in these websites is rounded corners. These can be difficult to achieve successfully and the authors make it very easy. This chapter also touches on different drop shadows and image replacement techniques, which are useful for placing a logo in place but still having the text remain search engine friendly. Chapter 4 is a fairly short chapter on "Styling Links" with some interesting uses of attribute selectors.
   
   Chapter 5 is all about "Stylig Lists and Creating Nav Bars" including the popular "Sliding Doors" popularized by Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign and first published in October of 2003 in A List Apart online magazine. During the section on creating nav bars, this chapter shows how to use CSS sprites for rollovers and visited links, something which I'll be blogging about soon. Chapter 5 also shows how you can use CSS to create image maps, something I've never even thought of doing with CSS.
   
   The next two chapters are two of the best in the book I think. Chapter 6 deals with "Styling Forms and Data Tables", while Chapter 7 tackles "Layout". I think that styling forms properly can be one of the most difficult things to do in a website Chapter 6 shows some good tips and tricks to handle this properly. After all the chapters on styling elements, comes the final code chapter which deals with Layout and shows how to center designs, create two and three column layouts, and liquid, elastic, and hybrid (elastic-liquid), or fluid, layouts.
   
   As any web designer knows, IE doesn't do the best job of displaying HTML and CSS properly according to the W3C. Fortunately, the last two chapters in the book are about "Hacks and Filters" and "Bugs and Bug Fixing", two excellent chapters for dealing with the countless IE CSS bugs. Finally, the last two chapters of the book are Case Studies that put everything together and take you through building two different web sites in a Web Standards way with CSS.
   
   Overall, this is an excellent book, one I'd highly recommend to any web designer, or CSS developer, looking to expand their knowledge of the powerful language that is CSS. Definitely worth adding to your library. On an additional note, this book is published by Friends of Ed, a fantastic publisher of technical books, and one of my favorites. I currently own 8 books published by "Friends of Ed" and 2 more from their parent company Apress, all of which are excellent books.



5. I'm a software developer, not a web designer, so I don't use CSS on a daily basis. I've read a number of CSS books. This is the clearest, most practical presentation that I've run into. CSS is a surprisingly complex topic, particularly when you have to consider the real-world incompatibilities. For an intermediate presentation, this is an extremely well written, impressive book.

5 comments about Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data.

1. I found this book to be a must have for anyone working with dashboards, BI tools and data visualization. Take a look around the web (or where you work) and you will see people violating Few's most common mistakes repeatedly. Features of these tools are being abused for a "gee whiz" impact that may impress some in a presentation or board room, but fail to deliver the most elegant and useful solution. Alas, we seem not to learn these most basic lessons with every new medium from the GUI to the web to dashboards. When it comes to dashboards, Few is "driving" in the right direction and when the initial excitement cools, I'm sure his approach and advice will be broadly recognized.



2. Mr. Few's book boils down to one message - the point of a dashboard is to convey the right information simply, without confusion or distraction. He then proceeds to show by copious examples the various techniques to use AND to avoid to accomplish this goal.
   
   His points about how to visually focus on the data rather than the "fluff" in charts and overall design are excellent. Especially valuable are discussions of how placement, grouping and other non-data display design elements affect our interpretation of the data.
   
   The author, however, does have a fairly large blind spot (if you will forgive the pun) regarding the use of color when the target audience includes people with visual disabilities such as color blindness (like myself). He has an entire chapter on Visual Perception, but fails to address this crucial issue when discussing "limits to visual perception". And at one point when specifically discussing designing his own bullet graphs for colorblind people, the author states "any hue will do" and then shows an example using a hue where I can NOT perceive the different gradients.
   
   In summary, this is an excellent starter book on good dashboard design. However, if you have users with visual disabilities like mine, be sure to verify your design with your special case users.



3. this book is worth every penny. i use it all the time as a reference and it's a good read.



4. This book offers more than the title might suggest...more specifically, this title provides a good foundation for how to communicate data visually in general. Stephen Few does a good job demonstrating examples of good and "not so good" visual presentations of data utilizing Information Dashboards.
   
   I found the example Information Dashboards at the end of the book to be particularly useful. This book could serve as a good reference for those interested in effectively communicating data visually.



5. Nutshell review - A decent book on dashboard design. I had hoped for more examples of good design rather than more examples of bad. Worth looking at nonetheless.

5 comments about Programming in Objective-C (Developer's Library).

1. This book is useful for any Mac OS X developers who just started to make programs for this platform.
   It not only teaches Objective-C, but also the programming basics, and the use of the base collections of the Foundation Framework.



2. This book is best for those new to Object-Oriented programming who want to learn Objective C. It is less useful to those who want a solid understanding of programming technique and OO design, as it tends to skim over both. It is also less useful to experienced programmers who want to switch to Objective C, as it spends many pages interweaving basic concepts with those specific to Objective C.
   
   For programmers of several years, I recommend looking for a terser book. For new programmers, I recommend considering picking up an intro to programming book instead of or in addition to this one.
   
   Also, this book tries to teach Objective C for all platforms, and as such spends its first hundred pages teaching memory management that appears to be at odds with Apple's preferred methods. Its second half teaches Apple's pre-Objective C 2.0 method (retaining and releasing), which as of 2007 has been somewhat displaced by garbage collection.



3. If you are beginning, and you have a little background of C, well this might be your book. Everything is very kindly explained just for beginners. But if you already know C and want to start from Objects and everything related with the Foundation framework, well you will see that half of the book is not for you. Because 300 pages are of C programming and not specifically of Objective-C programming.
   But the examples are very good, and if you forgot something you can find it very easy because is very well organized.
   As the super tiny title "Is an introduction."



4. This books assumes the reader has no programming experience at all. I can't imagine choosing Objective-C as a first language. And if you are, I would discourage you from doing so.
   
   If you have some software programming experience at all, you will find most of this book a waste of time and space on your shelf.



5. If you want to develop applications for the iPhone, you'll need to learn how to program in Objective-C. This is the best resource for doing that. Kochan explains each feature of the language using clear, simple examples and a straightforward and concise writing style. Even if you're a relatively new programmer, you can learn how to write Objective-C programs from this text. Unlike other references on Objective-C, Kochan does not assume you know how to program in C as a prerequisite. This is a good thing and a key pedagogical point, as the foundation for object-oriented programming is laid right from the start. Instead of having to learn how the underlying procedural C language works first, you are instead taught from the beginning to think in terms of classes, instances, and methods.
   
   Once you have learned Objective-C from this book, you'll be ready to move on and tackle Cocoa and the frameworks that Apple provides to write iPhone applications. This book makes that task that much easier. The bottom line is that this is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn Objective-C and who needs a clear, well-written tutorial to lead the way. Only very experienced object-oriented programmers need not apply!

5 comments about Head First PMP: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam (Head First).

1. This is great fun book for a "Dry" subject. Has lots of pictures and cartoons which bring the FUN into studying.



2. The Head First PMP is a good exam prep supplement. I would not recommend this as your only source of exam prep material - Andy Crowe's is a little more in-depth and contains less errors in the material (although it too, has errors.) If you get this, know that it's not *the* comprehensive study guide, but it will give you a more hands-on, interactive practice of the concepts than some other guides. Be warned that you will need to download the errata sheets from the publisher, and it's no substitute for reading the PMBOK or using practice exams. I like the friendly, interpersonal style of the book and the use of real-world examples (baking cookies, planning a wedding, developing a software game), pictures, quizzes, and crossword puzzles to help bolster the concepts. I hated Rita's book for her attitude and relationship marketing and wouldn't have paid money for it if I hadn't gotten it as part of a prep class. The exam questions included in the book are representative of other exam questions I've found as well.



3. This book does an excellent job of putting a lively spin on a dry curriculum, but is definitely not in-depth enough in many areas to serve as a primary source of study. The publisher's description "a learner's companion" about sums it up. Be aware that there is a smattering of errors throughout. For example, the author's description of referent power as "you're standing in for someone who has more position or power" bears no resemblance to how this is defined by the source, Bertram Raven's 1959 "Studies in Social Power", which other PMP resources, such as Kernzner, describe as charismatic power. The author also has a peculiar way of performing PDM forward-pass calculations that differed from my IIL course material, but also made the whole thing more complicated than it needed to be. I won't go into the details here, but be sure to keep an eye out for such inconsistencies.
   
   With that being said, I would still recommend the book to anyone who's in the process of preparing for the exam, but is having trouble pounding through and staying engaged with other study materials. The book presents concepts in a way that is easy to read, understand, and retain. For example, their presentation of earned value does a great job of demystifying this concept. Consider taking a break from the drudgery to give this a peruse, and then going back to the cram.



4. As noted in several other reviews, this guide presents necessary PMP exam prep information in an easy to read format. The methodology in which the material is presented is excellent. I would strongly recommend this book as part of an overall strategy in preparation for the PMP. However, since the PMP covers much more than just the PMBOK Guide, you will need to round out your business management knowledge/skills.



5. Given the 35% pass rate for those who self-study, I took a 4-day exam prep "boot camp." I then had to wait nearly a month to take the exam, so I invested in additional study materials - in particular this book and the Rita Mulcahy book. Because both books take different approaches, I felt together they gave me a broader base of user-friendly information to work with.
   
   This book is VERY visual compared to others, and while all of it was useful, I found it most helpful for comprehending the formulas and network diagrams.
   
   That said, no matter what your learning style, I wouldn't recommend using this book exclusively to prep. Despite the book's thickness, because of all the visuals and games I found I got through it relatively quickly, and I still didn't feel confident that I was fully prepared for the test afterwards. Hence the reason to supplement with the Mulcahy book. Together it made the test go pretty smoothly and that's what I'd recommend to others.

5 comments about Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 (Windows.Net).

1. Reading this book you can get the illusion that LINQ is just about XML. There is so much more - pretend that LINQ has noting to do with XML and see how it can change your project delivery!
   
   LINQ in Action This is the book that really shows what LINQ can do. It is VERY easy to read and get upto speed using this book - its a must have. Once you have mastered this book then look at others.



2. It's very rare to find a book on any programming topic that works as both an introduction to the subject as well as a reference for seasoned users. Joseph Rattz's book should be the first stop for anyone hoping to learn about LINQ. The examples given make what could have been a potentially massive learning curve even for experienced ADO.Net users a lot smoother.



3. This book is incredible at explaining the new LinQ functionality and since many of the enhancements made to C# were made to accomadate LinQ, it also does an excellent job at explaining the new language enhancements in a concise fashion. Highly recommend this book.



4. Once I had heard of LINQ I had spent a lot of time reading through the MSDN docs, but I wanted more information about it. Pro LINQ was the answer. It gave a very thorough run-down of each of the various technologies involved with LINQ as well as a breadth of useful examples to illustrate the points that were made. In addition I thought that the book had a nice progression of topics that left you wanting to continue on to the next chapter. LINQ is an awesome technology, and I feel that this book is a great tool to add to your arsenal to help better utilize it to its fullest capabilities. This book was definitely written from a developer's standpoint, but I didn't feel that it threw too much at you. I would highly recommend this book.



5. I actually met Joe in a Books-A-Million in Montgomery, Alabama... He is a very nice guy too! The book is chock full of code, it is concise and it is worth every penny and then some. If you want to learn about how to use LINQ effectively, congratulations, you just found your book.

5 comments about Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers (Foundation).

1. If you are interested in learning Flash, this is definitely a great place to start. I started with no knowledge of Flash, little artistic talent and a desire to create something cool. After going through this book, I now have a good understanding of how Flash works and I have a lot of cool animations and apps that I can show off to my friends.
   
   The book is very well written and has a nice learning curve. Difficult concepts are explained thoroughly, and the authors give plenty of tips that help a lot when you start to move on to doing your own things. The tutorials are very thorough and come with plenty of files to download, which is very helpful if you're like me and aren't very much of an artist. This allowed me to not have to really worry about drawing anything and focus more on learning how to use Flash.
   
   All in all, this is a great buy for anyone wanting to learn Flash, which can definitely be a daunting challenge to most without some sort of guidance, which this book provides plenty.



2. I had no previous experince with Flash. I am about to finish this book and this is a great book.Authors and the design of the book are top quality.Source files are well designed with two folders every chapter Completed and Exercise,this is a convenience for readers.Also inside the book there are many great links to websites of good Flash designers.If you need a flash book from the beginning this is the book to go..



3. Overall I think this book is pretty good. I bought it to brush up on my flash skills, which had been sitting unused for about 5 years, and this book was perfect for getting me up to speed.
   A few bad points:
   -If you had little or no knowledge of adobe programs this book might be a little confusing for you. As another reviewer pointed out in the first exercise they say to click on certain objects, but they never indicate you need to use the selection tool or what that tool even is.
   -The book asks you to use exercise files, but does not provide a CD with the files or any instructions on where to get them. I finally went to the publishers website and found the files in their download section.



4. Overall this is five-star survey of Flash CS3, written for people with slight knowledge of earlier versions of Flash and some more familiarity with basic graphic programs (primarily Photoshop and Illustrator) and web design. The treatment of CSS covers most of what any designer or developer will need to know in the course of any average Flash project. The introduction to ActionScript 3.0 is itself worth the price of the book and serves as a beginner's course to more thorough AS3 books, of which there are plenty.
   
   I doubt many people read a book like this cover-to-cover. Typically, the reader will head for a particular subject heading, read part of the chapter and try out the exercises. And this is where the text really shines--the exercises are extensive and presented in an accessible, friendly fashion.
   
   People who are just starting Flash now are very lucky. Although there have been voluminous Flash manuals for years, most were aimed either at the complete novice who wanted to learn the basics of timeline animation, or emphasized some abstruse new features, particularly in programming, image filters or video development. Now at last we have some well-written books aimed at the vast middle market of designers.



5. I just started using this book to learn Flash CS3. I think it is very easy to understand. However, the one downfall I do not like about it is that the author keeps referring to examples for the user to open as if a disk was included with the book, but isn't. It is just difficult to keep up or understand where they are going. Other wise I am learning tons!

5 comments about Learning Python, 3rd Edition.

1. If you are a top-down learner this book is not for you. You can safely pick "Dive into Python".
   However, if you are the bottom-up type, you will not regret. While the Python slogan promises "one way to do it", Mark Lutz will show you four, and explore every detail, like complex list comprehensions, closures and the diamond inheritance pattern. This is why you will wait 200 pages (exploring data types) until the introduction of the first Python statement, and 200 pages more for the first script.
   But if you cross the details, you will get excellent understandings of the core Python logic, which will save you countless debugging hours in the future.
   The OO part alone worth the entire book. It's going from the very basics of OO programming up to elementary design patterns and some advanced OO implementation issues in Python.
   One last caution: although 600 pages, this book should be really read cover to cover. It's a true tutorial, which gradually develops the major concepts (sequences, assignments, references, objects, namespaces etc) from the ground up, with (midterm?) exercises. Give yourself a few hours to really learn, exercise your brain (and fully grasp 100 ways to silently override your variables with namespace mistakes). It's a great book.



2. I'm talking about the 3rd edition. It's the first book about Python that I read, so I can't make a comparison. It may be just the best first book out there, but I'm not impressed. The book reads like a draft, not a book in its 3rd edition. The author just keeps repeating himself on minor points in subsections back and forth. It's 700 pages long, but I wish it were half the length, after cutting needless elaboration and repetition. Perhaps the older editions are more concise. On the other hand, we readers may not have a choice.



3. Python has the reputation to be a language that is easy to learn. Well, why do you need a book more than 500 pages to only learn the language then? The answer is that even if you can learn the basics very fast, it has a lot of bells and whistles that can take time to master.
   
   This book covers only the language not the libraries, but covers it very well. Highly recommended reading once you'll want to use the language to write something bigger than a script of 10 lines.
   
   4 stars only because I would have expected some exposure to the standard libraries as well for a book called "Learning Python"



4. I've been wanting to learn Python for a while. Hearing that the 3rd edition of Learning Python had added "exercises", I ordered it. It was a mistake.
   
   The book winds its way through each facet of the language one by one, making no attempt to integrate what you are supposed to be learning into a working, functional solid.
   
   The exercises consist of simple parrot questions: "Name the four major components of the module search path." Even the major exercises are childish. After the chapter "Advanced Function Topics", write a function which prints its single argument. Then try passing it more than one argument, or no arguments, to see what happens!
   
   The code examples are never more than five lines, usually initialization of a variable, then a toy operation on that variable, with in-line comments taking the place of actual demonstration. A particularly choice tidbit comes when the author demonstrates making user-defined classes adopt the iteration protocol. He gives as an example a class which iterates over a predefined series of square numbers, then finishes the section with a note to the effect that such a simple procedure should really be programmed using a list comprehension.
   
   The author constantly urges the reader to try things in interactive mode, but he doesn't give much of an idea what to try. Of course the reader can make up exercises, or rewrite a old program, which is what I have resorted to, using this book as a reference manual, but that's hardly ideal. The author is an expert on Python, and I don't know anything yet; he should be directing my exploration of the language, not just handing me an atlas.
   
   I give this book credit for completeness and for clarity of explanation. The author lays out language features and tells you how they operate in a way that is easy to grasp. What he fails to do is to get the reader coding and actually using all the bits of the language, so that actual work can be done. He notes that the creator of Python has a mathematical background, which accounts for the consistency of the language design. It may also account for the lack of practical instruction.



5. I used to say that there were several good books for learning Python. You just had to browse them and choose what works for you. Not anymore. This third edition, along with coverage of Python2.5, adds dark tabs for the exercises at the ends of most chapters, and I think that many people can now learn the language by just trying the exercises and comparing with the answers in the back. The sidebars are interesting. The tables are clear. The examples are instructive. The typesetting is well-chosen. Despite all the materials availabe free on the web, this book is worth the price.

5 comments about JavaScript: The Good Parts.

1. Do you struggle when creating objects in Javascript?
   Do you find the syntax to be non-intuitive and frustrating?
   Do you know the difference between using a function as an object vs using an object literal?
   Do you know how using object literals can simplify your code and create something similar to namespaces?
   Do you know how to augment the type system -- for example, if wanted all strings to have a trim() method?
   Do you know why the "new" statement is so dangerous? Do you know an alternative that eliminates the use of "new" entirely?
   
   These are some of the topics that the book touches upon.
   
   This book is aimed at someone with intermediate programming experience that wants to know the best way to create and use objects, arrays, types, etc. Crockford takes his experience with Javascript to show you best practices coding techniques and styles to use with Javascript. In addition, the book provides insights into what makes Javascript so confusing and what can be done about it.
   
   You might ask "Isn't this stuff already covered in other books that I have?" The answer is no. For one, most other books use a psuedo-classical coding style (see below) to explain objects that is a source of confusion.
   
   Javascript can be very confusing, especially for programmers who have extensive experience in other C-based languages (like myself). Writing good Javascript that uses objects, methods, etc. is hard. In Javascript, if you want to create objects, use inheritance and create methods, you have several different ways to write your code and it's difficult to know what the strengths and weaknesses of each are.
   
   Crockford explains the problem plainly. Other C-based languages use class inheritance (Crockford calls this classical inheritance). Javascript, on the other hand, is the only popular language that uses prototype inheritance, which does not have classes. However, the syntax which Javascript uses to create object is Java-like (Crockford calls this pseudo-classical syntax). It's confusing, because it keeps you in a class-based frame of mind while working in a language that has no concept of classes.
   
   Clarifying what's going on with the object model is the best part of this book. Crockford also explains other parts of Javascript that can be problematic and the techniques that he prefers for handling them. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but the important thing is that he explains his reasoning.
   
   To effectively learn Javascript, I recommend that you buy 1) a book that covers the details of the language and can be used as a reference (e.g. Javascript, the Definitive Guide) and 2) Crockford's book. Advanced programmers might also enjoy Pro Javascript Design Patterns, which shows a number of ways to combine Javascript with some of the GoF patterns. I would avoid any cookbook style books on Javascript, because you're better off using YUI, JQuery or one of the other Javascript libraries than writing your own drag-and-drops, calendars, etc.
   
   There are a series of Yahoo! videos by Crockford that mirror the material in this book and can be found as podcasts under YUI Theater. They contain nearly all of the material in the book and probably a little more. Those videos are:
   
   - Douglas Crockford/An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM (3 parts)
   - Douglas Crockford/The JavaScript Programming Language (4 parts)
   - Douglas Crockford/Advanced JavaScript (3 parts)
   - Douglas Crockford/Javascript The Good Parts



2. I have to wonder if the positive reviewers actually read much of this, it's so surface. This book will neither teach you javascript nor interest the experience programmer for more than about 15 minutes.
   
   The money could be much better spent on a truly useful book.



3. it's amazing that many great people don't know how to teach...somebody who loves this language so much to write so little and not explaining and providing examples......
   
   
   The same thing you could find online.....
   
   
   Don't take me wrong, you will learn a thing or two, but that's not the point.
   
   So called diagrams or flow, whatever they are, they are totally useless.



4. This is the first book by Douglas Crockford a Senior Software Archtitect at Yahoo. He is widely known as one of the most knowledgeable on JavaScript apart from the creater of JavaScript (Brendan Eich). Douglas Crockford is the creator of JSON and has written many articles and presentations on JavaScript-related topics in web development.
   
   His book JavaScript: the Good Parts, is a short (145 pages including Appendix) but is very useful for the person who wants to expand his/her JavaScript skills and knowledge. It reviews the basics of the language in the first two chapters and then focus on intermediate and advanced topics such as objects, inheritance, arrays, and methods.
   
   The appendix categorizes the "bad" parts of JavaScript that are not good programming syntax and should be avoided such as global variables, scope, eval function, with statement, undefined variables and so forth.
   
   I really like how Douglas Crockford gives you everything you need in this book that is relevant to how modern developers using JavaScript program and helping you understand it easily and quickly. No long-winded explanations or extra "filler" just to make the book longer. He is right to the point and explains it in a coherent, understandable way no matter what your "technical" level is.
   
   This is a very useful book for the client-side developer who wants either a great reference book or somebody who wants to take their skills to the next level using JavaScript.
   
   A must buy!



5. I'll keep this short and sweet (like the book). This book distills the JavaScript language down to the bare essentials that a programmer will need to write clean, powerful code. It even tells you what to avoid along the way. Douglas Crockford takes a veritable pig of a language and turns it into delicious ham, bacon, and chops.
   
   For someone serious about JavaScript, there are two books to own. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide to learn the language and its syntax (in minute detail), and this book, to learn how to use the language well.

5 comments about The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP.

1. This book is a wonderful assistant for people they like to dive into DW and PHP. It completes all my questions and it's tips are rule!



2. I haven't finished this book yet. I have completed the chapter on how to setup a testing server for php. So far I am very pleased with the book it has allowed me to setup a server and test my php code. This book is well worth the price just for this.



3. I have read many books on programming. While I have gleaned some value from just about every book, the page-count-to-learning ratio hasn't been great. And on a few occasions, I hit a roadblock where I simply wasn't getting what author was telling me I should be completely proficient with at that moment...anyone else experience that?? Makes me feel like a coloring-by-the-numbers code monkey. I've gone back to some of those books once I have gained some proficiency on the topic (elsewhere) to find that those authors made things unnecessarily complex. Who knows why, but it sure pisses me off.
   
   I give you this background, so that when I say that this book is absolutely without equal in delivering actionable, easy-to-understand content on almost every single page, that is no exaggeration. I lost count of the number of times I came up with a question, only to read the very next sentence which usually went something like this, "...you are probably wondering why this is the case. Here's why..." It was incredible! And the exercises start to ween you off of the minutia at precisely the right pace (for me, anyway). It was a great confidence builder when the author wrote, "You should be comfortable with these steps at this point..." and I totally was.
   
   Truly excellent work by David Powers and Tom Muck (who did the technical review). And they've kept their errata/updates site up-to-date with DW CS3, which definitely came in handy as I encountered current-version discrepancies with things like Spry 1.6.
   
   One miss was, the very last exercise did not work for me. After thoroughly reviewing the sample code, my code, etc. I submitted it as errata...waiting for a response.



4. I'm currently taking a class in PHP/MySQL and it's use in eCommerce, and this book has really helped me along the way! The author shows you the ways in which Dreamweaver can help you to reduce your development time, but still produced some really great, dynamic sites. He goes into detail on some of the code as well, which is helpful. Additionally, the author is very honest and recommends other resources for items he covers in a limited manner. If you want to learn more about connecting to a database or just using PHP for simple mailing forms, as well as some nice CSS tips, this book is for you!



5. I have had some experience in using Dreamweaver since version 8, and I wanted to 'marry' my meager PHP+MySQL experience in using Dreamweaver CS3 beyond what I was currently doing; creating static XHTML+CSS websites.
   
   This book has exceeded my expectations and then some! With it, I am now able to easily create dynamic websites, all within the GUI comfort of Dw CS3. (Ok, some ad hoc hand coding may be needed.) I didn't really want to learn more about PHP programming, MySQL queries, Ajax, etc. I just wanted to know how to use tools available in Dw CS3 to manipulate web technologies, and this book delivers. Real-world examples in the book helps drive this knowledge further.
   
   A mild caveat; this book really is an intermediate-level book. It would be helpful if you were already familiar with the technologies used in creating dynamic websites. i.e., having passing knowledge of PHP, MySQL, XHTML+CSS, Javascript, and Dw CS3. That said, the book does include a PHP and MySQL primer.
   
   Some minor snits;
   This book covered the installation of a LAMP stack on a local machine. (Either Windows or Mac) I would have liked to see a chapter on installing a LAMP server (Ubuntu is great!) on a laptop or a computer running in a home network. After some fair amount of trial and error, I was able to have a testing server on another machine, freeing up my main machine for Dw CS3 and other tasks.
   
   It would be nice if the book could have followed up with more examples of extending Dw CS3. The book did show one example of how to add in a customized server behavior, and I wanted to see more of that. Less hand-coding, and more GUI coolness via these extensions would help making working in Dw CS3 a more enjoyable experience.

5 comments about JavaScript: The Definitive Guide.

1. This work is great as reference once one has acquired some skill, however it is not a good introduction for starters.



2. I bought this book after the helpful reviews found on amazon. This book is must have for reference, I've been using this for the past one month and its been great reference for me, a beginner.



3. I feel that this book is really a work of art. Besides agreeing with the last reviewer that it is not fair to consider this as a book for beginners and then judge it against that standard, I'd say that even though it is not for beginners, it does not make unnecessary arcane references, etc. It is very readable, at least for someone who's had a little experience working with JavaScript. I'd say it is not even a requirement to know object oriented principles (except for those sections perhaps). The author has not only made intelligible so many of the quirks of JavaScript, but provides code which is easy to follow yet extremely useful.
   
   As far as examples, while for JavaScript fans, it might have been nice that the book expanded into 2000 pages instead of almost 1000 that it is now, the author does, I feel, what is necessary to both explain and demonstrate the concepts, and most often, does so by creating VERY useful utility functions and "classes". Just for the utility functions alone, the book would be worth it, really. There are only a very few places where the author suggests to look elsewhere, and besides my not minding doing so given how the book already saved me so much time, the cited references would have taken up unnecessary space if the author were to include them (and they definitely weren't essential).
   
   The book is not outdated! Unlike other books, most of the book is rarely tied down to code that can become outdated as browsers change (like the changeable but helpful quirksmode.org ). Of course, as a big fan of this book, I hope the author will be persuaded to keep making new editions (and make a hardcover!). If you really want to learn the language, this is THE book.
   
   This book was no doubt an immense labor of love--you can feel the author is human, actually teaching, and is not trying to show off with terminology while he still does explain a whole lot of necessary terms, etc., comments the code well, etc. As with art (not the strange modern variety either), I am flabbergasted some people cannot appreciate its beauty. In a complex JavaScript application, I am building, I am using no less than 7 of the utility classes he provided in the book.
   
   For those studying JavaScript in depth / reading this book, I'd recommend one supplement to the book: the informative articles at http://javascript.crockford.com/ (and no doubt that author's book too). The articles on private members and classical vs. prototypal inheritance are one area I felt for which additional examples and use of terminology was helpful, and allowed me to appreciate and understand the chapter in the book on classes more fully (and utilize the approaches in its utility classes as well).



4. This book not only assists first-time JavaScript programmers, but is an excellent reference for the more experienced developers. The examples are first-rate, and the reference sections are more comprehensive than any I've seen for this language. A MUST if you are a serious JavaScript professional.



5. This book could easily serve as an introductory text to JavaScript. It offers enough depth for beginning JavaScript. Unfortunately, it does not delve enough into things like closure, which I believe is a very important language features. Furthermore, after the first or second reading, this book can handily serve as a reference book since part 3 and 4 of this book is reference to the classes, methods, and functions that are available in most JavaScript implementation.