When I was just a wee seventh grader, my best friend in middle school and I used to ditch gym class and go hang out in the library. Barring the overbearing signs of budding nerd-dom, we shall focus on what went down at that point. Neither of us knew much about web design, industry best practices, or the like. We simply sat around writing HTML, inserting marquees and Javascript-based guest books on tripod-hosted sites, for which we inadvertantly found code for hiding banner advertisements.
We didn’t learn everything we knew from books. We actually learned a lot from “that one site where the girl talks about it teaching it to kids and stuff.” (Most of you probably actually know what I’m talking about — what’s that site again?) But over the summer, I somehow took my new-found knowledge to an addiction and it hasn’t died down since. These are the books which got me hooked on the world’s greatest drug.
5. HTML 4 for Dummies
As much as it pains me to say it, HTML 4 for Dummies was actually the first book on HTML I ever read and where I learned a lot of the basics that still remain today. Teaching such Good Things as using tables for full-page layout, it filled my seventh-grade head with some code and not-so-great ideas that fortunately never ended in disaster. I’ve come a long way since that first site, but I will never forget what I learned.
4. CSS: The Definitive Guide
CSS: The Definitive Guide transformed my knowledge of web design from “It’s just some HTML mark-up and a bit of styling” to “Wow, this is really cool!” This book single-handedly taught me most of what I know about CSS layout (what is use for the vast majority of the sites I do these days) along with a few tutorials. It had easy-to-follow examples which definitely made CSS less daunting.
The bad part about CSS which most of us have realized is that, after winning the browser wars, Internet Exploder stopped increasing its support for CSS. Long story later, a vast majority of web devs were using broken CSS techniques just to get the damn thing to display right. With everything changing now and support increasing, we must un-jade ourselves and re-learn our craft.
Even so, what I learned sticks with me today. I never could’ve gotten to where I am without this book.
3. The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
An in-depth, all-inclusive monster of a book, The Principles of Beautiful Web Design was one of the best books I read. While I don’t always follow the advice given (if you hadn’t noticed), it did make me aware of many things, which I feel is just as important. Covering everything from typography to texture and color, the author shares a wealth of knowledge on the topic of designing, well, beautiful web sites.
2. Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience
Designing Web Navigation narrows down the subject line to simply building an intuitive interface to your website. Now, I only read about half of this book because mine was poorly printed and I simply could not stand the headaches any longer. I can’t help but wonder what I missed, but at the same time, I wasn’t interested in navigation at the time, and it’s still one of the “back-burner” items on my list.
1. Beginning PHP5, Apache, and MySQL Web Development
Beginning PHP5, Apache, and MySQL is the book that took me from designer to programmer overnight. I immediately became addicted to PHP, even setting out to design my own content management system the night I began learning it. The addiction hasn’t died down since, so this book must have done something right.
I wouldn’t say these books taught me “everything I know.” More, they simply gave me a beginning knowledge and a motivation to learn everything I know. I find that a motivation and craving for knowledge is probably the best thing you can get from a book. At least I know that’s true for me.
I encourage everybody interested in the web development industry to pick up these books at some time (well, perhaps not HTML for Dummies — it’s definitely not going to “learn you real good.”). I think I might even make Butch read a couple of them.
So, dear, readers, do you have a book that influenced you in your niche? One that got you hooked? Share it in the comments.
