Contents and Book Overview
The book begins by explaining what links and URLs are, and how page linking works. Next comes a chapter on forming an HTML document—what essential tags every HTML page must include. The structure is described, along with mentions of XHTML and the current version of HTML at the time of writing—4.01. The topic of attributes is covered, including global attributes.
The next section is an introduction to CSS. It covers ways to include styles, and the book is so “for dinosaurs” that it even mentions detecting the version of Internet Explorer. Then it goes on to selectors and concepts like the tree, descendant, parent, and sibling elements—which, to be fair, are explained quite well. Topics such as selector conflicts and priorities, inheritance, and basic measurement units are discussed (although there are far more units nowadays).
After a brief chapter on standards using W3C as an example, the author offers four pieces of advice for working with styles:
- keep it simple
- be flexible
- stay consistent
- stick to your course
These are somewhat philosophical tips for beginners. Other recommendations were less useful and didn’t stick with me.
The next large section is about layout building: the box model, floats, text wrapping, clearing floats,
and even grid-like structures similar to Bootstrap. Unfortunately, there is no mention of flex or
grid, which makes this part outdated.
After explaining the page skeleton, there’s a good chapter on HTML lists, including definition lists. It covers starting numbering from a custom position, changing list markers, nesting, and styling. This chapter remains relevant today.
Next comes working with text—headings, links, quotes—all styled with CSS. Overall, the chapter is still useful but would benefit from updates with newer CSS properties.
The section on colors and backgrounds feels outdated. Modern color spaces like LCH and OKLCH are not mentioned, making the content less relevant today.
The chapter on tables is surprisingly good. It covers <thead>, <tbody>,
<tfoot> tags and explains the structure clearly. Still applicable today.
The multimedia and image section discusses replaced elements, alt text, and image dimensions.
However, it lacks information on WebP, AVIF, the <picture> tag, and CSS filters.
<audio> and <video> are only briefly mentioned—overall,
the section is outdated and shallow.
The chapter on web typography is a continuation of the text topic: fonts, encoding, measurement units, and CSS properties. It does a good job of explaining terms like “glyph,” “literal,” and “base element”—a rarity in modern books. However, there are too few CSS properties mentioned, and the content feels underdeveloped.
The forms chapter even briefly touches on SQL and CRUD. There are examples of file handling, asynchronous requests,
and GET and POST methods. Basic HTML form elements are well covered,
but HTML5 elements are merely listed. Attributes like required and tabindex are mentioned,
and the chapter ends with form styling. Overall, it’s a decent chapter, but incomplete by modern standards.
The final section discusses the drawbacks of HTML and CSS—from Internet Explorer issues to inconsistent property support. Nowadays, most of these problems have faded away as technologies became obsolete or standardized.
Conclusion
The book didn’t offer anything fundamentally new to me, since I already knew most of it. The 2011 publication date explains a lot. I would only recommend it if you’re just starting out with web development and haven’t found a more up-to-date alternative (if one even exists).
