HTML5 In Action: how is it special?

[Bear Bibeault]

Hi guys, and welcome to the Ranch.

There are about 17 bazillion books on HTML5 out there, aside from a really interesting Table of Contents, what distinguishes your book from the rest of the pack?

[Rob Crowther]

When I wrote the initial proposal I felt like most of the books available were answering the question “What is this HTML5 stuff?” I wanted HTML5 in Acton to instead answer the question “How can I best make use of HTML5 in my web applications?” So instead of looking at HTML5 features in isolation with self contained examples we have a single example application for each chapter which makes use of a number of HTML5 features in a more 'real world' context.

[Qunfeng Wang]

Rob Crowther wrote:When I wrote the initial proposal I felt like most of the books available were answering the question “What is this HTML5 stuff?” I wanted HTML5 in Acton to instead answer the question “How can I best make use of HTML5 in my web applications?” So instead of looking at HTML5 features in isolation with self contained examples we have a single example application for each chapter which makes use of a number of HTML5 features in a more 'real world' context.

I like this idea very much. There are many introductions of HTML5 features on the web. How to combine these features and create great applications is my first concern for a HTML5 book.

[Ash Blue]

One of my biggest frustrations with most books on HTML5 app building is they cover how to use libraries instead of raw HTML5. Learning in this manner teaches you the library, not the API. If the book actually covers raw HTML5, then they usually present demo code samples instead of full applications.

My goal when writing the chapters on Canvas, SVG, and WebGL was to bridge this gap by creating complete applications from scratch. At a company I previously worked at, we would use the Canvas and SVG chapters to ramp up developers in a day or two. Other resources and books we tried weren't producing the same results. Also, I heavily customized my chapters based upon feedback we gained during the ramp-up process.