When I first picked up this book, I thought I would give it a miss. The text appeared too simple and the cartoon illustrations in it seemed to be unnecessary and too 'cute'.
Well, like they say, first impressions can be wrong and was I really wrong. After picking this book up again a few days later and really reading through it, I realised that this is a wonderful book to read, not only to learn about HTML 4 but as a general book on web design (and is highly entertaining too).
For the uninitiated, HTML (hypertext mark-up language) 4.0 is the latest 'official' specification of the language used to create almost every web page you see, this one included. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is in charge of the language and Dave Raggett is the main person at W3C in charge of HTML development.
There are plenty of books on writing HTML out there so what makes this one unique? Many things: it's fun to read (that should be a good enough reason to read it), it's easy to read for both the beginner and expert HTML coder, it features simple examples that gradually build up to reveal complex but easily understood HTML designs.
Most importantly, this book shows how to write HTML pages that are browser independent (any HTML 4 browser can read the example code in this book) yet good to see as well as how to cater for the sight impaired web browser, something many sites overlook in their quest for 'flashy' displays.
The book not only covers the full HTML 4 specifications (everything from simple pages, forms and frames to scripting and cascading style sheets). In closing, it looks at several web sites that the authors judge to be interesting designs and shows how the sites are linked together into a coherent whole.
If there was ever a book that should be read to find out how to code with HTML 4, how to design good web sites that any browser can see, how to design a site so that people with disabilities can also view, how to link sites together into a coherent whole and how to write a fun book while you're at it, this book is it.