Title:     Creating Web Sites: 
              The Missing Manual
Author:    Matthew MacDonald
Publisher: O'Reilly
Edition:   First, October 2005 
Series:    The Missing Manuals
ISBN:      0-596-00842-2
Pages:     559 
Price:     $29.95 US, $41.95 CA, £20.95 UK 

Somewhat Longer Review

Contents

• The Cover
• About the Reviewer
• What You Get
• What I Like
• Gripes
• Who's the Book for?
• Final Thoughts

The Cover

Creating Web Sites

The title indicates the book is about creating websites. So I expected the book to address both structuring a site and creating the individual pages.

The Missing Manual

Most of the books in the Missing Manual Series are directed at specific products (or specific versions of specific products). The idea is that The Missing Manual for the product is the book that ideally "should have been in the box" that the product came in.

However, some books in The Missing Manual Series are not about specific products that come in boxes, for example:

• "Google: The Missing Manual"
• "Home Networking: The Missing Manual"
• this book

For such books my understanding is that The Missing Manual is the one you would ideally have been provided with.

Quoting from my earlier review of "Google: The Missing Manual":

"Missing Manual" is an O'Reilly Series. A book in this series is supposed to

• be the manual you wish had been provided
• be clear enough for a novice
• be deep enough and detailed enough for a power user
• be complete
• be warm, witty and jargon-free
• provide a real-world perspective.

BUILD YOUR SITE WITH FREE SOFTWARE

Based on the words "BUILD YOUR SITE WITH FREE SOFTWARE" on the cover, I expected to learn how to build a site with free software. By free I understood "free as in beer" (i.e. without cost) rather than "free as in freedom".

Does the book fit the cover?

Yes, the book does generally fit my expectations from the cover.

There are two important exceptions. For power users the book lacks:

• information on server side programming
• a robust HTML reference
• a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) reference

Also, there's not much about site architecture (structure) in the book.

On the positive side the book addresses:

• how to get and keep visitors.
• how to make money with your site.
• how to add a blog to your site.

These are bonuses I hadn't expected.

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About the Reviewer

Here I've included some things about myself that I think may be helpful in making use of this review.

If you feel the need for more information about me, there's lots on the Net. One possibility is to look around my personal site. Or you could do some web searches, for example on: "george woolley" review

Web Books Read and Reviewed

I've read and reviewed 11 web books. I'm excluding the 7 books I've read and reviewed on specific programming languages (Perl and PHP) as the book being reviewed specifically avoids getting into programming except in the case of JavaScript.

Missing Manual Experience

The only Missing Manual book I've read and reviewed is "Google: The Missing Manual".

Publisher Preferences

For many years I've considered O'Reilly easily the best publisher of computer related technical books. In the last couple of years, I've come to have a high regard for O'Reilly's non-technical books too.

Open Source Advocacy

I'm an advocate of Open Source software.

My primary OS (operating system) is Linux which is Open Source and all the applications I use on a regular basis are Open Source.

Programming Experience

I no longer need to work, however when I was working my work was primarily as a software developer.

I've made significant use of more than 20 different (computer) languages and by far my favorite is Perl. Perl was also the easiest language for me to learn.

I like the Perl culture and take to heart the Perl motto "There's more than one way to do it." I take the motto to be closely related to the spiritual notion "There's always another point of view."

As a result of my exposure to Perl, I now consider myself to be a cultural postmodernist.

Web Site Experience

I'm an amateur web developer. I've created many websites on a number of different topics, a couple of them for user groups.

In both programming and web development, I have a strong inclination toward simplicity. For example, I use a very small number of HTML tags.

A Postmodern Minimalist

I consider myself to be a postmodern minimalist, which may seem like a contradiction. In my view, however, cultural postmodernism is encompassing enough to include at least some forms of minimalism.

Expected Readers

This review was written with the expectation it would be posted on the Oakland Perl Mongers site.

My expectation is that most readers will be programmers and that many will be Perl programmers. I'm also thinking that many of my readers will favor Open Source software.

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What You Get

There are 17 chapters divided into 5 parts. The body (introduction plus the 17 chapters) takes up 501 pages.

There are also two appendixes and an index.

How to Build Web Pages

How to build web pages using HTML & CSS is the focus of the book. From my perspective, 10 of the chapters address particular aspects of this. (chapters 2, 5-10, 14-16)

The chapters on Building Web Pages will teach you the basics, and more, of both HTML and CSS including, among other things:

• how to create headers, paragraphs and lists.
• how to link pages.
• how to include graphics, audio and video in your pages.
• how to layout pages.
• how to make fancy buttons and menus.
• how to make pages interactive.
• how to use CSS to control the layout and appearance of your pages.

How to Relate to Visitors

There are two chapters about how to relate to visitors. (chapters 11 & 12)

In these two chapters, you'll learn such things as:

• how to get your site well indexed by search engines and directories.
• how to track visitors.
• how to turn your site into a community.
• how to make it easy for visitors to contact you via email.

How to Make Money with Your Site

There's a single chapter on how to make money with your site. (chapter 13)

This chapter suggests various ways of making money. It goes into detail on:

• Google Adsense for making money by showing ads
• Amazon Associates for making money when people buy books from Amazon after coming there from your site
• Pay Pal for collecting money on things you sell online

Expressing Yourself

There's also a chapter on blogs which can be thought of as falling into the category of expressing yourself. (chapter 17)

In this chapter you'll learn a simple way to have a blog on your site.

How to Learn More

There are useful links scattered through the chapters. These are brought together in an appendix.

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What I Like

Breadth

The book covers a wide range of topics successfully. In addition to teaching how to build web sites using HTML & CSS, the book addresses such topics as:

• how to attract visitors and how to get them to return.
• how to add a blog to your site.
• how to make money with your site.

Lots of Good Advice

The book is filled with good advice.

Here's some examples from the first few chapters:

• Keep your pages simple.
• Know your audience.
• You may need to refresh your page to see the most recent changes to it.
• Don't assume that a domain is available simply because you can't access it on the Web.

Of course, the book goes into a bit more detail.

Clarity in Presenting the HTML-CSS Relationship

The book does a really good job of getting across the relationship betweeen HTML & CSS. I noticed several things that contribute to this.

First, the order in which things are presented contributes to making the relationship clear. In Chapter 5 HTML Text Tags, the relationship is explained before basic HTML text tags and list tags are discussed. The next chapter, Chapter 6 Style Sheets, begins with a description of the relationship in different words. This order makes both chapters clearer and also helps to make the relationship between HTML & CSS clearer.

Second, it is helpful that these two chapters are contiguous so that the basic tags are clearly in mind during the discussion in the CSS chapter.

Third, HTML tags that are not relevant when using CSS are not discussed in any detail. For example, the font and center tags are not included among the basic tags in chapter 5, are not included in the HTML Reference appendix and are not listed in the index.

Lots of Useful Links

I mentioned earlier that there are useful links in each chapter and that these links are brought together in one place in an appendix. Even better, these links exist on The Missing Manual site as The Missing CD for this book. Consequently, you don't need to key the links in. You just need to click on them.

Limited Scope

The author exercised admirable restraint in limiting what he presented. Some of the things I noticed he wisely didn't try to address were:

• server-side programming
• HTML tags and attributes you are not likely to use with CSS
• details of CSS that aren't needed for most formatting.

I appreciate that the author didn't aim at some arbitrary form of completeness.

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Gripes

Encourages Flashy Web Design

It looks to me like the author is encouraging flashy web design. In the introduction, he explicitly says the reader will learn to "pile on the frills" and "to dazzle visitors". Looking back in chapter 10, the author says the reader has learned (among other things) how to "gussy" up web pages with "trendy" layouts.

In the Introduction the author does indicate some distaste for background music on the web. However, he does teach the reader how to create it.

Doesn't Address Security

The author seems not much concerned with security. For example, there is no entry for security in the index. For example when talking about what to seek in a web host, the reader is encouraged to look for FTP for uploading but is not advised that FTP is not secure and is not advised that there are secure alternatives to FTP.

My thought is that it would be appropriate to include a paragraph on security that briefly says why it is important and why you might need to learn more about it later.

Expresses Strange Views of Computer Types and Programming Languages

The author expresses some views of computer types and computer languages that do not fit with my experience. In a couple of cases the expressions are quite negative and in my opinion are inappropriate in the context.

From the words about the author in the book, I gather the author is a programmer, so I'm guessing he doesn't hold these views. Still, for some reason, they are expressed in the book.

Oh, I guess I should give a specific instance. Referring to an example in which background-color: #E0E0E0; occurs, the author says:

Even a computer nerd can't tell that this applies a light gray background.

I don't get it. The author clearly understands #E0E0E0 is light gray and it's obvious to me (and I'm not a professional web designer). I would think it would be obvious to most people who use the notation involved much. Also, what's with the reference to computer nerds?

Does Not Provide Enough Choices

The book doesn't always provide alternatives.

For example, in the chapter on making money with your site, the author goes into great detail on Google Adsense, Amazon Associates and Pay Pal. In order to give enough information about these it may be necessary to focus, but I'd still like to be presented in the chapter with at least the URLs of some alternatives.

Includes JavaScript

It seems to me the chapter on JavaScript and DHTML is way too hard for a novice.

In my opinion, this chapter should have much less ambitious aims. Or it could just be dropped.

Includes Frames

It seems to me the chapter on Frames is way too hard for a novice.

In my opinion this chapter should be dropped.

Is Not Explicit about Who the book is for

I had some doubt who the book was intended for.

I think this should be made explicitly clear in the first few pages of the book.

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Who's the Book for?

Who the Book is Ideal For

The ideal reader of this book would:

• want to create a website with fun bells and whistles.
• not be a programmer.
• not be an experienced web developer.
• be primarily a Windows user

Who the Book is Definitely Not For

This book would be especially bad for someone who:

• is a programmer.
• is already an experienced web developer.
• is a Linux user.
• easily takes offense at implicit negative characterizations.

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Final Thoughts

This is a well written introduction to creating websites. For the most part it's easy to read and presents things with unusual clarity.

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