by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, O'Reilly Press
O'Reilly Press consistently provides today's professionals with high quality reference and learning tools. HTML: The Definitive Guide, by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, does not disappoint. Not only does it provide a good foundation for beginners in the basics of writing and creating web pages, but it also includes in-depth information for those wanting more. Musciano and Kennedy begin the book by explaining the history of the Internet and its underlying structure, giving a solid foundation for readers to build upon in their study. They continue to extensively explain every HTML construct and tag, stating pros, cons, and current browser support for each HTML 4.0 tag and element. A full HTML 4.0 reference, character entity list, color name list, and HTML 4.0 DTD (document type definition) finish off the book, making it the truly definitive guide to HTML 4.0.
Musciano's and Kennedy's delightful writing style makes a potentially boring subject like HTML 4.0 interesting to read about. Throughout the book, they provide humorous examples out of a fictitious Kumquat fan site. Thus, the book's educational tone is balanced by the authors' entertaining writing style, making this tome an essential part of any developer's library.