Reviews for HTML Dog:The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML and CSS

1. A very good book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2010

   I already *knew* the author via his HTML Dog web pages, so had high expectations of this book. It lived up to them. The writing is always clear and to the point. The author doesn't shy away from some pretty difficult stuff but handles it in a way that a relative beginner (like me) can understand. All in all a very good book.

2. Great book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, August 12st, 2009

   Great book,
   
   I'm recomending it to all my students. Simple, compact and has all essential information about css and xhtml.

3. Not for beginners

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2009

   Its very good, but not for beginners as it gets bogged down in the technical side of the coding fairly quickly and if you're not familiar with it, that could be a problem. As a best practice guide it is very good, but again, assumes a level of familiarity.

4. Good content but...

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2008

   what about the white space?
   
   The book has been written by an author that obviously knows his stuff and there's plenty in here that'll help anyone get started with using XHTML (or HTML for that matter), and in a way that'll ensure that content and presentation are well separated and that the best possible use is being made of CSS features. Even those who feel they've got a grip on the whole thing will find there's something here to make them think again about what they've been coding.
   
   The writing style is chatty and for the most part it manages to seem like someone 'older and wiser' in the office offering help and advice from their vast experience. It's a book you can browse.
   
   The main thing that's missing is information on dealing with the differences between browsers, and you'll probably need another book for that. The CSS Anthology is pretty good in this respect and would complement this book quite well.
   
   So, what about the white space? I really thought I'd seen the last of books with acres of white space around the page and using widely spaced lines. But apparently not. In fact this is one of the worst offenders I've seen in quite a while. It's so bad I actually measured the pages and borders. A page is 170mm by 230mm and the text on it is 115mm by 147mm. That's close to a third of a page that's blank. In addition, there are appendices for CSS and HTML specifications that are equally generously proportioned. The book could have been small and light enough slip into a bag without noticing it if the space had been better used.
   
   5 stars for content, 3 for that wasted paper

5. book + website= success

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2007

   I have never written a review before, but know feel compelled to do so.If you are serious about wanting to learn html, don't buy any of the 24hr quick learn rubbish, buy this book and follow the tutorials on th HTML Dog website. True, this book is fairly advanced, but the website starts it's tutotials from beginner,and they are concise and more importantly, written in xhtml strict. Buy this book along with HTML Mastery and Beginning CSS and CSS Missing Manual and you won't need anything else to learn how to write perfect code.