Reviews for The Art & Science of CSS

1. There is indeed art and science in this book

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2009

   The art is that it is actually quite enjoyable to read it from cover to cover. The science is that it's also a great reference book for the techniques it teaches.
   
   The impressive list of authors take your basic understanding of CSS and enhance it by covering some of the cornerstones of modern web design. Each chapter offers multiple solutions with no single method of achieving a result pushed over another. All are described in detail with code that covers both the HTML and the CSS needed.
   
   If you have the time then I recommend you read the full thing and try out some examples. If you don't have the time, buy the book anyway and use it for reference as you work on your website projects.
   

2. There is no science

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2008

   I am sorry, but I don't agree with rating this book more than two stars for the following reason.
   
   1- The method used is the static way of creating mark ups for example creating the photo album with out server side include (ssi will reduce the amount of typing and would make things easier to understand instead of having so many pages to create.
   
   2- the title says the art and science of css, what you will find is only art work. There is no explanation of the meaning of each code. its only examples.
   
   I don't recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn css.
   this book is not for beginners even though the concept is. the book has failed to show beginners how to start for example file extension save as etc.
   this book is only recommended to wanna be web masters who wants to borrow some ready made examples (serious web masters don't need this book)
   
   when i bought this book i expected to find information about the following:
   absolute and relative positioning. And how to use them together in one application for example you could have an absolute inside relative to have a two or more boxes as parents child relation.
   the usage of percentages, pixel, etc in relation to screen.
   more details about ms explorer bugs and how to fix them.
   and more
   
   unfortunately the book does not have any explanation and clearly the title is misleading by using the term science.
   
   sadly as always, bad books takes lots of writers and this book is one of them. It took five writers.
   
   If you want to learn css don't buy this book.
   If you want examples and just examples this book is for you
   If you don't know css this book is not a very good start.
   

3. Nice, but not mind blowing

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

   Most of the examples in this book are aimed at streching your imagination a bit further than previously, specifically in how you approach a design and the coding aspect behind it. If you want a CSS manual, don't buy this book, this title would be better left until you're looking for inspiration.

4. Really useful book - definatley recommended

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

   I'm not normally a fan of CSS - the mere thought of the amount of tweaking and hacking my CSS usually needs just to work correctly across a decent range of browsers gives me nightmares! But I did really enjoy this book. It's a short read, coming in about about 210 pages, the content is concise and well written. This makes it perfect for anyone who wants to read this book while learning or working on a project - you can read a section and straight away start working the techniques into your code instead of reading 4 chapters of syntax and theory just to get started.
   
   The sections of the book are also really independent - for example, the first chapter I read was chapter 5 (forms) because that was relevant to what I was working on at the time. Since then I've dipped in and out at various points depending on what bits of information I needed. The way the book is written makes this really easy - you can dip in and out at different points and not have any trouble following the text and examples.
   
   This book isn't for a total beginner, but this book is perfect for anyone who knows the basics of CSS and wants to move to the next level or anyone with experience with CSS who just wants to brush up a few gaps in their knowledge. Definitely a welcome addition to my bookshelf - I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.