Working on Web Sites in a Straight Forward Way

Doug Addison has produced a very useful and informative guide to working on Web sites. While many books look at the mechanics of HTML, or detailed coding, Web Site Cookbook rather follows the O'Reilly cookbook structure, looking at specific issues and needs and presenting answers. The book looks at the other aspects of good Web site work - colors, design and small tasks that are part of everyday Web sites now. Many of the recipes will make a more experienced Web site author go "duh," but I found myself flagging many of the entries if nothing else to do more research using some of the Web resources cited at the end of each recipe. Much of what is talked about is Web Design 101, but with so many WYSIWYG tools out there allowing anyone to produce a simple Web site, it's useful to have someone succinctly state the ideas behind complimentary colors to try and avoid those awful sites that just make your eyes burn. Nothing here is earth shattering or is something that you couldn't find on-line, but the value is Addison's organization and presentation, distilling Web speak into simple language, showing some examples and sending the reader off to other resources if he or she wants. The book is written with the idea that you are programming in PHP on top of an Apache Web server, which may not be relevant to all readers, but even those readers, like myself, who don't use PHP or Apache can carry away quick and valuable information, and have a flagged book to grab and look for information on a specific topic in the future. It's going to be a useful addition to my my desk.

Other Reviews

• Web Site Cookbook
• COOKING ON YOUR WEB SITE!!!
• Working on Web Sites in a Straight Forward Way