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Start programming using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Fajfar I., Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2015. 468 pp. Type: Book (978-1-498731-44-7)
Date Reviewed: Mar 16 2016

The title of this book might suggest that it is about programming, but it is in fact more about building websites. Focusing on essential web tools is an intriguing approach to teaching programming: the web is ubiquitous, and many who program do so to build websites. The title of the book identifies the tools to be presented; in the body of the book, the material is organized around describing a series of conversations (meetings between a professor and some students), with appendices that elaborate on the final assignment, suggest ways to move on from this material, and provide some guides to the three major tools discussed.

There is a great deal of material contained in the book, and the author/professor is able to discuss the details knowledgeably with the fictional students. The mini-guides in the appendices are helpful summaries.

The pedagogical approach is a bit challenging to novices. First, there are places where the distinction between description and processing is blurred. While Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is correctly introduced as a descriptive language, on page 2 the professor says that HTML tags “instruct a browser to make a paragraph.” Second, the first assignment intentionally depends on information not yet introduced, which is a difficult way to build confidence in students. Third, the conversational style between the professor and the students can seem contrived and can blur the conveyance of information. Fourth, there is a rapid accumulation of details that are necessary to use the tools effectively, such as requiring students to download tools to help with a “development server” (p. 37) or the introduction of hexadecimal encoding (p. 44) or of a debugging tool (p. 138). Each is possibly a good thing, but the amount that one has to learn to get through the series of meetings is large.

The book should be valuable for those wanting to produce websites, but there are other approaches to learning about programming that would be more effective.

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Reviewer:  D. T. Barnard Review #: CR144235 (1606-0367)
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General (D.1.0 )
 
 
HTML (I.7.2 ... )
 
 
Javascript (D.3.2 ... )
 
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