

Ask YC: what are the best books to learn CSS and XHTML from? - getp

Today I almost bought the Agile Web Development with Rails book, until I remembered some posts here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=104745 a.o.) that you should The Rails Way instead. So now I'm getting that one :-) But also, I'm looking into the frontend of developing web apps, so what would be the best choices for books on XHTML, CSS, etc.?
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xirium
I advise people to get the oldest books possible. The reason for this is that
the books don't get thicker but they have more topics to cover and tend to
concentrate on the most whizzy features. If you get an old book then it'll
cover the basics in more detail.

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Elepsis
This might make sense in some cases (i.e., C programming), but I don't really
know that it does in the case of HTML. I wouldn't want waste time learning, in
this day and age, how to make table-based layouts that are strictly compliant
with the HTML4 spec.

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mdemare
No idea what there is to learn about HTML, it's CSS that's the problem. I've
never found a resource that explained CSS well.

CSS still surprises me almost daily. I'll be probably fluent in Haskell before
I ever get CSS. What would really help me is having the source code of a well-
written, high-level CSS rules engine - written for educational purposes, not
for performance.

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ratsbane
I've bought several CSS books over the years but the only reference I use
consistently is the actual CSS specification from the World Wide Web
Consortium: <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/>

Also, it's free and you can keep a copy of the PDF on your computer and search
it when you need something specific. It's more conversational and has more
illustrations than most internet spec documents. However it doesn't tell you
what parts of CSS aren't implemented correctly by specific browsers or give
thorough examples.

The W3C HTML and HTTP documents are really good too:

<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html>

<http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/>

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iamdave
Dan Cenderholm's "Bulletproof Web Design" is a must read.

<http://www.simplebits.com/publications/bulletproof>

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showerst
It's very much paced towards a beginner, but I know a lot of people who love
the head first HTML book: [http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML-CSS-
XHTML/dp/059610197...](http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML-CSS-
XHTML/dp/059610197X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204642166&sr=8-1)

If you're more advanced or just looking for a brush up i second Dan
Cederholm's book aimdave recommended.

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joshstaiger
I like CSS Mastery:

[http://www.amazon.com/CSS-Mastery-Advanced-Standards-
Solutio...](http://www.amazon.com/CSS-Mastery-Advanced-Standards-
Solutions/dp/1590596145/)

It does a great job of calling out CSS bugs in specific browser versions and
describes how to work around them.

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rksprst
<http://w3schools.com/> is all you need, the best way to learn is just start
working and then look up anything you don't know how to do.

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m0nty
Recipe-book style, light on theory but good for solving problems:

<http://www.sitepoint.com/books/cssant1/>

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Hexstream
Personally I learned HTML and CSS from the specifications and some
experimentation while doing a project... I don't see why you'd need books to
learn those.

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getp
The HTML Dog looks pretty good, right? <http://www.htmldog.com/book/>

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kajecounterhack
CSS: The Definitive Guide (O' Reily)

