Core Web Programming, Volumes I & II (Core Series)

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The first part of the book covers HTML 3.2, including the basic tags and more advanced topics such as frames and cascading style sheets. This section discusses Netscape and Microsoft extensions to HTML (such as using plug-ins for playing multimedia content and ActiveX controls). The tutorial to HTML is comparable to those in other books of this category and includes some of the author's tips for creating more portable HTML.

The next section covers the basics of Java from a programmer's standpoint, including the advantages of Java and how to access Java documentation and tools. The tutorial that follows stresses the built-in libraries in core Java, covering drawing images and other graphics capabilities. Event handling in Java Developer's Kit (JDK) 1.02 (probably unnecessary these days) and JDK 1.1 receive full treatment. The chapter on graphics double-buffering for smooth animation within Java programs is particularly useful, and the author's treatment of how to access the network capabilities of Java is perhaps unmatched. (Topics here include how to load URLs using Java's network classes and even how to create a simple HTTP server in Java.)

The third section of this text moves to CGI programming using Java on the server. The author introduces the basics of HTTP and describes how data are passed to CGI programs from the client. Though this section lacks a discussion of Perl (which is still the preferred language for CGI development), the treatment of CGI fundamentals and the basics of Java servlets is good. (Java servlets are an alternative--with some advantages--to Perl.)

The fourth and final section of the book returns to the client side once more, with a tutorial on JavaScript, the scripting language for Netscape browsers. Topics such as how to use cookies to store information on local machines and how to validate arguments for CGI forms help round out a successful tour of the technologies that developers need to program on the Web.