I’m studying web programming on my own, and I’d to create some quality sites someday. I already know some xhtml, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP5, and I’ll soon learn Perl and MySQL. I want to try creating webpages soup-to-nuts writing out all the script myself rather than relying on an editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver.
Do any of you know of a book that deals with creating interactive webpages? I’m not looking for a textbook only on learning the languages (I’ve got plenty of those, believe me). I’m looking for something that gives me the big picture of creating websites by combining these scripting languages to create an attractive and practical interactive site.
A book that included sample code would be a big plus.
Any thoughts?
I found HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide to be a good book for HTML and CSS - you say you know some of this already, so it might be unnecessary, but I found it invaluable. Just the reference section alone! It’ll certainly get you writing websites without Frontpage.
As for dynamic sites, I use PHP, taught to myself by the by-the-same-publishers PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide.
I found the style of both of these books to be great for my way of learning - both have text explaining the topic next to example code and screenshots, so you can get a real understanding of what you’re doing.
Everyone learns in a different way and there’s a whole load of books out there, but I found these two to be great.
Thanks for the input, Fromage. They sound pretty good, but I’m actually looking for books that assume that you already know how to code. I just want to dive in and start serious web coding from page one without having to wade through basic “This is how you make an array” stuff.
Sorry, should have been more clear on that.