Author/s : Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Robson
Publisher : O'Reilly Media
Category :
Web design, HTML and JavaScript
Review by : John Wetherbie
Rating : 9 horseshoes
So, what's in it for you if you buy Head First HTML5 Programming? Well, you'll get a book that focuses on helping you "get" HTML5 and helping you not to forget what you learned. The authors approach this task by providing short introductions to a topic, such as a particular aspect of JavaScript, and then having you work exercises - some paper and some coding. The authors even encourage you to write in the book. Make sure you have a pencil!
Keeping your interest, and hence your attention, is a strength of the book. Lots of pictures and notes all over the place? You bet. Its all part of getting the important information about HTML5 that you want to learn (otherwise why did you get the book?) to your brain. Once they have your attention the authors help you retain the material by presenting it in a variety of ways and having you do a variety of exercises. The exercises are key to getting the knowledge into your head and keeping it there.
The book expects that you know HTML and CSS to some extent and provides very good introductions to JavaScript and its new APIs. The topics covered in the book include:
- An introduction to JavaScript
- Using the Geolocation API in your web pages
- Web apps & JSON
- Being artistic with the Canvas API
- Becoming a video star with the Video API
- Using storage in client browsers
- Using Web Workers to get the job done outside the main JavaScript
thread
I highly recommend this book. It is aimed to help you learn, have fun while you're learning, and to help you retain this knowledge so you can go out there and do great HTML5 stuff.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in
exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
More info at Amazon.com