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Web Programming And Internet Technologies: An E-Commerce Approach by Scobey, Porter, Lingras, Pawan [Jones & Bartlett Learning,2012] (Paperback) [Paperback]
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April 19, 2015
Ugh, this book... If this was your first foray into web programming, you would be utterly and completely lost from the instruction provided by this book. It explains the mere minimum of what you need to do to make an exact copy of the model site they use in the book. If you want to do anything else, or understand how any of the processes you are using work, then you are out of luck.
The book starts off promising, with a nice review of basic web design skills, such as XHTML and CSS. Honestly though, a lot of this material was simply too introductory - it would have been much more beneficial to cut out the beginner level "history of the web" and dedicate that space to the more complicated topics, like PHP and SQL. If you are expecting readers to be proficient enough at web design to use PHP and SQL, chances are they already know what the internet is, and don't need to read an entire chapter dedicated to its history.
As the material got more challenging toward the middle and end of the book, so too did the book lose its instructional clarity. Instead of teaching us the what, how, and why, the authors were merely able to teach us the "just do this and don't ask any questions." I understand that these are difficult programming languages and can't be completely summed up in one chapter of an instructional textbook. I just would really have liked to gain a better foundation on how these languages work, rather than just a list of instructions on how to replicate the exact set-up they've got in their (poorly designed and inefficient) example site.
I dunno, maybe a lot of my issues are stemming from the incompetent "teacher" I had for this class. Maybe if I had had any sort of supplementary lesson or lecture, it would have been easier to comprehend. But as a standalone guide to learning to create an e-commerce site... I would definitely not recommend it unless you already have an understanding of Javascript, PHP, and mySQL.
The book starts off promising, with a nice review of basic web design skills, such as XHTML and CSS. Honestly though, a lot of this material was simply too introductory - it would have been much more beneficial to cut out the beginner level "history of the web" and dedicate that space to the more complicated topics, like PHP and SQL. If you are expecting readers to be proficient enough at web design to use PHP and SQL, chances are they already know what the internet is, and don't need to read an entire chapter dedicated to its history.
As the material got more challenging toward the middle and end of the book, so too did the book lose its instructional clarity. Instead of teaching us the what, how, and why, the authors were merely able to teach us the "just do this and don't ask any questions." I understand that these are difficult programming languages and can't be completely summed up in one chapter of an instructional textbook. I just would really have liked to gain a better foundation on how these languages work, rather than just a list of instructions on how to replicate the exact set-up they've got in their (poorly designed and inefficient) example site.
I dunno, maybe a lot of my issues are stemming from the incompetent "teacher" I had for this class. Maybe if I had had any sort of supplementary lesson or lecture, it would have been easier to comprehend. But as a standalone guide to learning to create an e-commerce site... I would definitely not recommend it unless you already have an understanding of Javascript, PHP, and mySQL.
Displaying 1 of 1 review