Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming

Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming 90

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 05, 2011 @06:15PM from the read-all-about-it dept.

Michael J. Ross writes "Web designers and developers alike are increasingly enthused about the capabilities offered by HTML5, which is generally considered the combination of the latest version of the Web's primary markup language and its related technologies. Consequently, publishers have rushed to market a wide variety of books that purport to explore the inner mysteries of HTML5, even as the standards — and how browsers implement them — are still in flux. In characteristic fashion, O'Reilly Media took the time to wait for some of the dust to settle, and attempted to create a resource more approachable and solid than those thrown together quickly. The final result is Head First HTML5 Programming." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Head First HTML5 Programming
author	Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson
pages	608 pages
publisher	O'Reilly Media
rating	7/10
reviewer	Michael J. Ross
ISBN	978-1449390549
summary	A heavily-illustrated introduction to building web pages and web apps with HTML5.

The release of this book is quite timely, given the current developments in web technologies. As one of the underpinning components, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) has undergone tremendous change during its two-decade history — with new element names and attributes being added to try to keep up with the latest multimedia formats, design techniques, and other factors in the Internet's evolution. Even though this newest major revision, HTML5, is still not completely supported by most browsers, much of its capabilities are already available, to one extent or another. Also, forward-thinking designers and developers are not waiting for the final blessing by the W3C to begin learning what they can do with it now and in the future.

This book was written by Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson, both of whom possess a lot of experience with the subject matter. This title was released on 18 October 2011, under the ISBN 978-1449390549. Its considerable size, 608 pages, is partly due to the extensive use of humorous pictures, actors, scenarios, clever drawings, and a generous use of whitespace — characteristic of other titles in the Head First series. At first glance, these elements might seem like cartoonish gimmicks, meant only to boost the page count or keep graphics employees busy. Actually, these methods are intended to help readers retain the new knowledge, and make the learning process more pleasant. This approach is covered in more detail in the book's introduction.

The material is organized into ten chapters, followed by an appendix. The only technical prerequisite, for prospective readers to get the most out of the book, is a solid understanding of HTML and CSS. Some JavaScript knowledge would be helpful, but is not necessary. On the publisher's page, visitors will find more details about the book, a couple reader reviews, some brief author bios, links to purchase the print and electronic versions (PDF is the only format), and the reported errata (of which there are eight, as of this writing). The example code and other files for the book can be obtained from WickedlySmart.

The first chapter introduces HTML5, at a high level and a fast pace, focusing on the new features that it offers, such as the new JavaScript APIs: embedded video and audio (without the use of plug-ins), client-side data storage, off-line web apps and caching, geolocation, canvases, sockets, Web Workers, and advanced capabilities for forms and drag-and-drop. JavaScript is also introduced, with some simple example code. Much more detail is presented in the subsequent chapter. The only confusing point is, on page 53, when the authors state that there are three different ways to add JavaScript code to a web page, but the figure shows four permutations. The third chapter explains how to work with events and handlers, using a simple music playlist app to illustrate the ideas. In the subsequent chapter, functions and objects are explored in much greater detail, and the presentation is quite methodical and comprehensible.

With Chapter 5, "Geolocation," the authors shift from establishing a foundation of basic JavaScript knowledge, to showing how to apply it for constructing web applications. In the case of geolocation, readers are stepped through the process of building a simple web app that detects the user's current position, displays it on a Google map, and tracks any changes in the position. The next chapter shows how to make one's code work with web services, using the JavaScript communication APIs, and why JSONP bypasses the problems with XMLHttpRequest requests being blocked for security reasons by the JavaScript same-origin policy. The presentation is solid, except for the claim on page 257 that the callback receives an object, when actually it receives an array of objects. Chapter 7 explicates the new canvas element, which offers capabilities encroaching upon the realm of Adobe's Flash. The next chapter, titled "Video," is a logical continuation of the discussion on the canvas element, because the latter allows one to do a lot more with the video API. The authors demonstrate how to do that, after discussing the different video formats and techniques for writing robust HTML to accommodate as many brands and versions of browsers as possible.

HTML5 has taken the venerable browser cookie, and extended its storage capacity tremendously, in the form of the local storage API (a.k.a. "Web Storage"), which is addressed in the penultimate chapter. Sadly, no troubleshooting information is provided in case the reader finds that the example code does not work in Firefox, even when using a web server (i.e., "http://" instead of "file://") — and instead fails quietly with an error message "localStorage is null" in the JavaScript error console. (For those who are interested, one source of the problem is when the Firefox configuration preference "dom.storage.enabled" has somehow been set to "false.") The tenth and final chapter, "Web Workers," shows how to utilize multithreading in JavaScript code to improve its performance, when possible. Readers using Firefox 8.0 (the latest version as of this writing) will likely find that the example code does not work on a localhost, throwing a "Could not get domain" error message, as a result of a known bug. The appendix briefly covers ten additional topics not discussed in the chapters, including Modernizr, the audio element, jQuery, XHTML, SVG, and more.

With a book this size, it is inevitable that it will contain various blemishes. Some of them are a result of the book production process: In the text, JavaScript tokens are not distinguished from English words in any manner (such as a monospace font or bolding), which can trip up the reader. On some of the two-page spreads, the portions of the images and arrows get lost in the book's gutter. In the many illustrations involving one or more persons saying something, their statements are shown in thought bubbles, which is mildly but invariably disconcerting. Other flaws are results of the writing and/or editing: Commas are oftentimes used where semicolons or periods were called for, or just missing altogether — especially in the mock interviews. Sometimes the conversational style — characteristic of the Head First series — becomes a bit too casual, and in some places the authors are trying too hard, such as the repeated use of "skool."

The example code is generally of good quality, but not always consistent; for instance, is employed in some places, but elsewhere — leaving the reader to wonder why. Also, there's at least one case of (incorrect) curly quotes in the code (page 454). It is helpful to have the example code available for download, although it would have been decidedly better had the root directory of the archive file contain an index.html pointing to all of the included apps, so readers could bookmark that single starting point, rather than having to modify their browser's URL each time. In addition, it is oftentimes not obvious as to which chapter subdirectory corresponds to any given location in the book.

However, the main problem with this book is the sloppy editing, evidenced by the notably high number of errata: "pin point" (page xiv), "test editor" (xxii; should read "text editor"), "iPhone" (xxv; should read "HTML5" or something similar), "folks that" (xxxi; should read "folks who"), "get [a] sense" (1), "on the page 2" (3), "can you get a long way" (21), "assign it [the] empty" (26), "you can also thrown in" (40), "its got" (46), "Your job is the act like" (57), "lets concentrate" (58), "get [the] length" (68), "Go ahead an open up" (90), "What you can" (129; should read "What can you"), "a object" (142), "an new object" (147), "to to" (158), "you [are] saying" (158), "users location" (166), "south" (167), "three properties" (177; should read "four properties"), "google" (186), "including [the] last two methods" (192), "give it a try it" (218), "will use" (220; should read "we'll use"), "take a 90 milliseconds" (221), "the this code" (249), "with out with" (268), "HTML =" (271; should read "HTML5 ="), and "an drawable region" (285). These are just the errata found in the first half of the book. Fortunately, they are in the narrative, and not the example code, which would have had a much more negative impact upon the reader.

This book is definitely an introductory tutorial, and by no means a reference. Not all of the new HTML5 elements are covered, nor is CSS3 provided full coverage. The repetition of concepts may aggravate experienced or impatient programmers: For people with some experience with these technologies, and for people who readily glean information from technical books upon first exposure to the given concept, the frequent repetition in this book would border on tiresome, if it weren't presented so pleasantly, oftentimes with humor. On the other hand, the Head First books are predicated on the approach of presenting information in different formats, to maximize learning. Any newbie should appreciate this volume's clear explanations, even if they are presented multiple times, but differently. Also, there is plenty of testing of one's knowledge, to reinforce what has been learned.

Head First HTML5 Programming is an entertaining yet instructive and compelling tutorial on how beginners can learn to use many of the advanced new techniques in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance web developer and writer.

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