Designing With Web Standards 384
| Designing With Web Standards | |
| author | Jeffrey Zeldman |
| pages | 456 |
| publisher | New Riders |
| rating | 9/10 |
| reviewer | Carl Anderson |
| ISBN | 0735712018 |
| summary | An excellent guide on designing a Web site with the latest Web standards |
Jeffrey Zeldman is one of the best technical writers whose work I've had the pleasure of reading. He is obviously well-educated with regard to the subject, and his passion for the work really shows through. Still, he never comes across as a zealot -- his style is even-handed, thoughtful, and easy to comprehend.
The first part of the book ("Houston, We Have a Problem") is the reason I give a rating of "9" rather than "10." Zeldman spends a perfect length of time on background and history of Web standards (why they're here, and what designers did before they emerged). However, this section seems to suffer from what many technical books suffer from: a case of "We'll see this soon"-itis. While this is perhaps unavoidable in such a treatise, it is nonetheless apparent. Still, it's only marginally distracting.
The meat of the book comes with "Designing and Building." Zeldman first talks about modern markup, then explains the variations on XHTML (i.e. Strict, Transitional, Frameset) and how each ought apply to your design. Here we see more theory than practice, though, but this is welcome -- it lays the foundation for a more cerebral look at distinguishing markup from design. Once Zeldman explains the nuances of that topic, we moveon to the redesign of a Web page constructed with a hybrid table/CSS design complete with all the excellent effects we hope to see in modern pages.
After working through this redesign, Zeldman talks in more detail about the CSS box model (and the browsers that break it), typography, and some of the quirks that Web designers must deal with. Next he touches a bit on Web accessibility--a must-read for everyone, whether you think so or not.
While Zeldman isn't incredibly thorough here, he doesn't need to be--it's a book on Web standards, after all, and this chapter serves to show how accessibility can still be achieved within those standards. He also suggests a couple of other books for more information.
Finally, Zeldman walks the reader through a redesign of zeldman.com, basically as a hands-on summary of the book, and as a guide for future projects. Also included is a "Back End" (i.e., appendix) showing some excellent information about each major browser.
Too often, a book or Web site on XHTML/CSS will dwell only on the "how"--this book shows the "how" and still explains the "why": Here's how you set up an id'ed element; here's why we do that, rather than using a class. It's already opened my eyes to many things I thought I had a handle on, but now realize that I only knew in a cursory fashion.
So, ask yourself: Do you want to design a Web site that will work for everyone, regardless of their platform? Do you want to make sure your Web site is future-proof? If so, you need this book.
You can purchase Designing With Web Standards from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Mmmhmm (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Standards (Score:5, Funny)
Standards are for pussies
Don't you Microsoft people do anything but read slashdot all day?
Standards? What standards? (Score:3, Funny)
Someone get this guy a GF (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe he should take a break from writing and get out to the bar a bit more.
Geesh, don't be silly... (Score:5, Funny)
web page
Voila! You have now created the perfect web page in ten seconds!
Microsoft takes care of all of the standards stuff so you don't have to worry your pretty little head about that. No really...don't worry.
No...don't do "View Source"
NO! Don't! EVERYTHING IS OK!! STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD
Re:Related resources (Score:1, Funny)
In short, something like this. [safemode.pt]
Re:Standards (Score:2, Funny)
Dude, what else am I going to do? Anytime I try to open Word, Excel, or Visual Basic, it crashes. The only thing I can load is Internet Exploder.
Web Standards? (Score:3, Funny)
*cough*
Re:Mmmhmm (Score:5, Funny)
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have proof of the existance of the Anti-Christ, here on Earth! First, the user name "illuminata" is too Luciferian to be denied. Next, note the Slash UID 668963 containing "the Number of the Beast". Finally, we have the demonic message itself!
Prepare for the Apocalypse, for it is surely at hand! Slashdot has spoken!
Re:The back cover (Score:4, Funny)
*sniff* So long, Slashdot, we'll miss you.
Re:The back cover (Score:4, Funny)
or at least he thinks he is!