HTML5 Foundations

This book is a great introduction to HTML5. I’m not entirely new to HTML, but I am new to HTML5. HTML5 is a huge topic and technically this book was published before the actual specification was standardized, but it practically covers all what looks to be all the major new additions of HTML5. The major new HTML5 stuff I learned by reading the book was the content related to accessibility, microdata, multimedia, and the new client-side storage capabilities.

This book walks you through creating a fictional pizza restaurant website entirely written from scratch using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. You incrementally add new HTML5 related features to the test pizza restaurant site as you progress through the chapters. Even so, additionally I opted to also update my hideous looking personal portfolio site as I read along with content that was being covered in the book.

Although this book is aimed for beginners, there are some areas that I felt it wasn’t opted for the average beginner. This book does not cover CSS at all. Instead it covers JavaScript, and some of it’s new HTML5 related functionalities like Geolocation and Canvas. Unlike HTML5, JavaScript is not a subject were you can easily read a few articles start using it efficiently. Instead of focusing on JavaScript, I would’ve like if the book focused on explaining CSS. I feel the description of this book is somewhat misleading. Since you can’t really start creating full fledge website without covering CSS and JavaScript thoroughly. Both of them are massive topics that practically need to have dedicated books each.

Another thing I would’ve like to see was a question and answer section at the end of every chapter. Thus said, this is a well written and structured book that any high school/middle school student or anyone interested on how websites are created, can easily pickup and start learning HTML5.

Rating: 3/5

HTML5 Foundations

• Chapter 1: Getting Started with HTML5
• Chapter 2: Structuring a Web Page
• Chapter 3: Creating the Page Templates
• Chapter 4: Creating the Web Pages
• Chapter 5: Working with Forms
• Chapter 6: Enhancing Your Web Forms with HTML5
• Chapter 7: Validating Form Data Using HTML5
• Chapter 8: Using Microdata
• Chapter 9: Ensuring Accessibility
• Chapter 10: Introducing JavaScript
• Chapter 11: Adding Video and Audio
• Chapter 12: Storing Data
• Chapter 13: Using Geolocation
• Chapter 14: Using Canvas to Create Online Ads

Tags: [ web-development ]

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