Bookbag : HTML & CSS.

I just want to take a moment and share with you a book I adore.  As a budding computer scientist, it is in my favor to learn as much as possible about the various facets of programming and computations.  One area that I ( and my academic education ) have neglected is web development.  Can you believe that just a few months ago, I knew zilch about coding websites?

isn't this cover lovely?

Before this foray into blogging, I was lucky enough to stumble upon HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett ( buy it here ).  When I first saw the cover, I swear I swooned a little.  It is minimalistic : simple and colorful.  I knew I could depend on this beautiful book's guidance to learn these two languages well.

It wasn't just the outside of the book that enamored me though.  The inside was a breath of fresh air, after being inundated by books with endless lines of code.  This is a clear example of the power of elegance and refinement.  

Reading is a wholly visual process, and Duckett takes full advantage of that by making his pages a graphic treasure.  The liberal use of negative space helps me from feeling overwhelmed, and on the more informationally dense pages, he utilizes light and dark grays to ease me in.

from duckett's booksite.

I have read many code books ( and textbooks! ) where the information is simply spewed out in long paragraphs.  It is as if the author is rushing to the finish, expecting us to keep pace and understand it as well as he does.  Duckett refrains from such a practice.  Instead, he takes his time, is methodical and thoughtful in the way he presents his information.

a type cheat sheet i made for myself back when i first read this book :D
did you know oblique and italic are not the same thing?! my mind was blown.

Programming books like this can very easily stray into "cure for insomnia" category: they become increasingly dense and dry as the chapters progress.  But, this book is one of the few exceptions.  It is consistently fresh and bursting with color, while giving a great foundation in HTML & CSS ( especially if one is a newbie, like I was ).

Speaking of color, anyone who has coded anything knows just how powerful color schemes are.  It makes reading and understanding what I write so much easier.  Not only that, in the right environment, it makes my code pretty. :)

a project i'm working on now. not html based. ^^

Thank goodness most of the programming environments today incorporate color into their text.  I don't know what I would do if my numbers and functions weren't shown in blues or greens!  Do you program or code websites?  Let me know your favorite platform - we can geek about it. :)