I wanted to do some mini reviews of books that I use for development when I had to accept the fact that I probably would be referencing Designing with Web Standards enough to where it would be better to just review it first.
Target Audience: Anybody new to web design, or web standards.
The Good: I remembering reading this book the first time after hearing far too many people simply praising it and I renamed the book in my head, “How the internet got so screwed up, and how are we going to save it.” I now use the shorter version of “How Web Standards Helped Save the Internet.” It is in short one part a history of how early web design was far from ideal with the lack of web design standards and the evolution of the browser wars and the fallout that came from it. The next part is what is being done via web standards to make the internet a better place for everybody by showing how to translate code from the old school of design to something a little more modern. It’s also far from a dry read.
The Bad: The title is slightly misleading in that the book takes on more than just purely designing with web standards. If you want pure coding, look elsewhere.
The Ugly: Most likely a one and done read. Yes, any web designer should be given a speech about the benefits of web standards. They most likely don’t need to keep going back to this book to be reminded of it again and again. It was a fantastic read the first time I read it. It also happens to be the only time I have read it.
Worth Buying: Likely on the cheap since it will get so few of reads, but worth getting for historical importance alone. It’s a great book to get and then loan out to fellow friends though.
