Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Advanced Course!
Review: Many parts of this book are difficult to understand for the beginning and intermediate user. It is an informative, advanced reference; the only one needed for an experienced website creator. There are no color examples of what the HTML language produces, making some of it difficult to piece together if you are not experienced.
Rating: 
Summary: The only HTML book you really need
Review: If you can only have one book on HTML, this is the book to have. No other book I've seen covers HTML and related subjects as well as this one. In addition to HTML, the author covers XHTML, briefly discusses XML, covers basic JavaScript and both CSS (style sheet) specifications as well, in addition to DHTML, which has permeated the Internet.
Despite its size and the magnitude of the material presented, the book is logically organized and well thought out, starting from basic and easy material and progressing in difficulty. There are several ways the material could have been organized, and as an experienced HTML writer I would have organized it differently, but I believe the author's organization makes the material more accessible for new and less experienced developers.
Any criticisms I may have of this book are very minor compared to the excellent job the author has done with this book, and I would recommend it for anyone who has to write HTML, with or without the aid of an HTML editor.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thorough introduction to HTML
Review: The Complete Reference by Thomas Powell is an excellent and complete introduction to HTML, clearly explaining the structure and content of HTML programming. It told me everything I needed to know to program in HTML. The index is also excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Overview
Review: This book is good in the sense that it introduces HTML and HTML commands. The biggest flaw in this book, however, is the lack of emphasis on XHTML. The cover boasts that it includes full XHTML within it; however, it is really only one chapter out of the whole book. As someone who likes to keep up with the W3C standards and current technology on web pages, I have found that out of this entire book, I really only use chapter 13 which is on style sheets. I read the book and got to this chapter only to realize that everything I had just read wasn't information I could use.
This book also includes an introduction to other aspects of HTML such as JavaScript and Server Side Programming, as well as, web maintenance. However, it only serves as an introduction and points the reader to other books. This book is great as an overview, but it does a poor job at helping you move from reading about HTML to actually doing the current HTML you would see on your favorite website.
I would recommend finding a book on CSS and XHTML that gives a short introduction to the basics of HTML and then gives more emphasis on the current technology being used.
Rating:
Summary: Handy, but has redundancy
Review: One of the flaws of this book is that the author has to make every point two times. For example, the structure of an Internet Protocol address is covered twice in two separate sections, for a total of 10+ pages. I find that addressing has been adequately covered in other HTML books in 2-3 pages. As another example, the author mentions a trick of prefetching an image by rendering it with a height of 1 and width of 1. This trick is mentioned in full detail (paragraphs) twice in two seperate sections.The author seems to feel that every chapter should be complete in that it covers all tricks. For a reader who reads several chapters at a time, sections become redundant. I agree with the reviewer who said that the book could have been shortened ~100 pages with no loss of value or continuity.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent learning and reference book
Review: I've been using this book for a while now, and I have to say that its one of the best written computer reference books that I've ever had the pleasure to use. Its extremely comprehensive and well organized, with lots of clear examples. It even covers some of the basics of JavaScript and CGI (though you'll still probably want/need another book that covers those topics exclusively, if you're interested in them.) Probably the only real complaint that I would have about the book is that its HUGE. There's some sections in the book that probably could quite easily have been cut or shrunk down. I kind of got the feeling that they wanted to stretch the book out to 1200 pages as a marketting "Look at how huge our book is!" thing. They probably could have made it ~1000 pages rather easily, which would have made the book easier to handle. In addition, some sections of the book are somewhat outdated. That's an unfortunate fact of life with books of this nature, though. Overall, though, the book is still very accurate.
Rating:
Summary: Simply awesome
Review: This book is just spectacular!
I have been a web developer for several years now, and I have read many books about HTML and related subjects. This book covers it all. But not only does the author cover HTML extensively, but he also covers XML, XHTML, CSS (extensively), CSS2, JavaScript, CGI, SSI, ASP, Coldfusion, and fonts.
Many examples are given in both code and URL, discussion, and the thoroughness of the author's coverage, makes this a first-rate book, in my opinion.
Most remarkably, the author discusses this subject matter very simply and in a way that anyone can understand (probably). I've honestly never read a technical book as lucid as this one. I highly recommend it!
If that was not enough, the book contains about 500 pages of appendices, covering extensively every topic related to web development that one might need. I'm not saying you won't need any other books to make fabulous web pages, but this book is amazingly comprehensive. The author's web site is nice too.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book--Didn't hold togeter
Review: Dear Sirs,
Your service is great. The book was in brand new condition and everything touted to be.
However, the book binding failed and has completely fallen apart. I have had to put it into a loose leaf binder.
I cannot return the book because I have all of my research marginalia in it. The book would have been much more useful is it was still in one piece.
Thank you anyways for you excellent service. I hope that my next book that I order does not fall apart.
Again, thank you for your service.
Sincerely,
Joe Whittenberger
Rating:
Summary: Among the best technical books I've ever read
Review: I laid my hands on this book about 3 years ago when I was already an accomplished webmaster. People like me who already know HTML and supporting technologies like CSS will defenitely rue the fact that they didn't lay their hands on this book earlier. Beginners this is the only book you'll need on HTML for a long while. My fundamentals were accumulated as a result of many books on this subject as well as the effort of scanning millions of emails on mailing lists. All in all sheer experience. The author has done it all for you. It's all there in one place, follow this book and you'll end up not making too many mistakes. I often get people asking me about something or the other regarding HTML / client side web development. I always refer them to this book. And no their queries aren't as simple as "What are the params for an anchor tag?". That any book on HTML can answer. It would be more like "I just can't get this page to have the same gap between two tables. All my code is perfect, I'm at my wits end!". The answer would be something only an expert can point out, like "Hey you have a newline between your tables in your code. Yes HTML doesn't care about newlines but some browsers do." Truly this book will answer a lot of questions like that. If you ever are gonna work with HTML or have been working with HTML but haven't read this book, your eyes will be opened either by the fact that you didn't know so many things, or by the fact that a human being could stuff so many facts into a single book. If you are the type who needs a pocket reference maybe you are at the wrong place, but then perhaps you'd demand a pocket reference for building a space craft too! This book is a must for anyone who needs a sense of how web building works. I last encountered this book in 1998 but I just felt like putting it down now, and I still recommend it. There isn't a better book on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Could Not Put the Book Down
Review: For such a fat book, I never dreamed I would read it from cover to cover. Everything you ever wanted to know about HTML is in this book. I am a beginner and this book has given me a great start.
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