Mark Kerr
Web Publishing: Introduction to HTML
LITC, South Bank University, London: 1997
105pp., softcover, ISBN: 1 900508 06 0 price £20 UK; £25 overseas
Reviewed on 12 Nov 97
Review by Philip Hunter
It is sometimes hard to recall that only two years ago it was difficult to find a book on HTML in a bookshop at all. I bought my first commercially produced HTML primer in October 1995 from a choice of two. Now they are overflowing from the shelves (literally in the case of many branches of Waterstones, where overabundance is deemed to add atmosphere). Close inspection of these books however is disappointing. Many HTML primers are little more than fifty pages of HTML tags and tips, padded out with a recycled resume of the Internet, information about search engines, browsers, plus a large list of links to 'sites of interest' and, if a hastily assembled CD is attached, containing page templates, links, and a handful of browsers, the price can hit the fifty pound mark. There have been some excellent and reasonably priced HTML primers which have come along, such as Ian Graham's HTML Sourcebook (covering the ill-fated HTML 3.0), but these have been rare.
Before the big publishers weighed in with their offerings, most web authors got their information from a small number of sources: talking to people, the documentation available on the web itself, hacking existing pages and structures, and from documentation available from the local academic computing service. The latter publications were necessarily cheaply produced and focussed on the essentials. Mark Kerr's An Introduction to HTML looks like a document developed from such practical materials. There is some introductory discussion about why publishing on the web is important (2 pages), and the pro's and con's of HTML (2 pages), before he works through all the basic aspects of web publishing; from the planning of the site, through elementary tools (notepad is the editor which is suggested), to page structures, tags, and how to include images.
The book is restricted in its focus to HTML: forms are discussed, but CGI scripting is not. There is a chapter on Frames, but Javascript is referred to under the heading 'Advanced Web design features', and largely dismissed by lumping it with Java, VRML and Shockwave - features which are not universally available to users - Kerr argues that: 'shutting out a proportion of the audience is inappropriate for sites focussing on public or statutory information'.
This is the kind of book I wish I had available to me three years ago: packed with basic information and free of padding. For anyone interested in putting simple structured information on the web this is a useful primer. It is more expensive than its spiral binding suggests it ought to be, but it is a better buy than most of the heavyweight, spot-laminated, pre-coffee-ringed competition.
Reviewed by Philip Hunter
Email: p.j.hunter@ukoln.ac.uk
Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This page last updated on 19-Nov-1997