Product Description
Combining viewpoints from a Department of Computer Science (Paul Wang) and a School of Visual Communication Design (Sanda Katila), this innovative book covers the design and technology aspects of Web site development in an integrated manner…. More >>
An Introduction to Web Design and Programming
Tags: Design, Introduction, Programming
#1 by Jason Henry on May 9, 2010 - 6:13 am
This is an excellent book that covers all aspects of web development. To often are programmers unconcerned with the aesthetics representing the code they create. However it does not matter how functional your site is if the user cannot enjoy it, understand it and navigate it. That is where this book fits in. It is the perfect medium between the programming world and the design world. If read cover to cover this book can give even the most inexperienced reader the skills needed for professional web development. It is well organized and laid out in a manor perfect for the classroom environment. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in web development.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Paul Kusic on May 9, 2010 - 9:10 am
The book is well written and concise with many wonderful examples to support the text. The combination of both web design and web programming into a single resource is inspired.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by C. Ehret on May 9, 2010 - 12:01 pm
I’ve been doing software development since the mid 90’s; but mostly targeting the Windows desktop. In the past couple of years, I’ve begun working on my web development skills, so I picked up this book to try to go back and pick up some of the things I may have missed along the way.
On the whole, the book delivers fairly well. It gives a solid introduction to basic HTML and web / graphic design principles — material that tends to be lacking in most “programming” books. The book is fairly content-dense, making it a relatively slow read — in particular the last chapter, covering CGI scripting in PERL, was fairly tedious.
If the book has a major short-coming, it’s that it assumes that the reader will be doing his/her programming on the Unix OS, ignoring that the vast majority of people will be using some flavor of Windows. In fact, the author references a number of Unix commands (such as “ls”) without explaining what that command does or what the Windows equivalent is. Fortunately for me, I had to work with Unix when I was in college (20 years ago).
If you’re just learning the basics of web development and design, and you’re running Unix or Linux, this will be a very good book. If you’ve only ever run on the Windows platform, much of the material will be useful, but you won’t have a clue what some of the examples do without doing some additional research on your own (not that this would be a bad thing). If you’re looking to learn to develop applications for the Web, keep looking. While you can get the basics of CGI scripting from this book (assuming you want to learn Perl), no attention is given to ASP or the .Net platform.
Rating: 3 / 5
#4 by Iyad Ajwa on May 9, 2010 - 12:24 pm
I have been teaching Web related courses for several years now. When I received a note from the publisher’s representative annoucing the textbook, my first reaction was “Another Beauty From Paul Wang” and I was right! I have copies of all books written by Paul Wang including the best-seller, five-stars book (ANSI C on UNIX). Finally, there is a book that I really can use in teaching courses on both Web Design and Web Programming. Most existing books either discuss Web Design or Web Programming but not both. I have adopted the book and I will be using it to teach my Computer Science students as well as my MBA students. The book is well-written, comprehensive, and probably is the first book that is written by people on both sides of the aisle: Arts and Computer Science. I have always believed that most computer science folks lack the artistic side of Web publishing and many people in the arts field lack the technical side of it. I believe the two authors (a well-known and famous computer scientist and author Paul Wang and a leading expert on Visual Communication Design Sanda Katila) have done an excellent job and provided us with a wonderful textbook that addresses the subject of Web development in an integrated manner. This textbook can be used by almost anyone who is interested in Web development. It is easy to read and follow and it is very interesting. Yet it is challenging and very informative. I highly recommend this book and give it a Five-Stars rating without hesitation.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Paul Wang on May 9, 2010 - 1:59 pm
To see the book cover, detailed table of contents, and
a rich set of supplemental materials please visit the
book site: sofpower.com/wdp
Rating: 5 / 5