Standards, argues Jeffrey Zeldman in Designing With Web Standards, are our only hope for breaking out of the endless cycle of testing that plagues designers hoping to support all possible clients. In this book, he explains how designers can best use standards--primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the standard Document Object Model (DOM)--to increase their personal productivity and maximize the availability of their creations. Zeldman's approach is detailed, authoritative, and rich with historical context, as he is quick to explain how features of standards evolved. It's a fantastic education that any design professional will appreciate. Zeldman is an idealist who devotes some of his book to explaining how much easier life would be if browser developers would just support standards properly (he's done a lot toward this goal in real life, as well). He is also a pragmatist, who recognizes that browsers implement standards differently (or partially, or not at all) and that it is the job of the Web designer to make pages work anyway. Thus, his book includes lots of explicit and tightly focused tips (with code) that have to do with bamboozling non-compliant browsers into behaving as they should, without tripping up more compliant browsers. There's lots of coverage of design and testing tools that can aid in the creation of good-looking, standards-abiding documents. --David Wall
Topics covered: Why Web standards (such as XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript, and DOM) are good for everyone, and why site designers and browser makers should move towards standards compliance.
Book Description
Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has updated his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. This new edition--now in full color--covers improvements in best practices and advances in the world of browsers since the first edition introduced the world to standards-based design. Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, it remains an essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain.
Readers will learn from Jeffrey's insights as he demonstrates how web standards are driving search engine friendliness ("findability") and the Web 2.0 applications that have reinvigorated the medium and the online marketplace. Readers will discover new techniques to make CSS layouts work better across multiple browsers and ways to make web content more accessible.
2nd Edition
Rating : 10/10