Created
July 7, 2010 03:09
-
-
Save DylanFM/466252 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
| I'm just going to list out a few books for you. They relate to quite a few different sections of web design and development, but it's good to cover a broad bunch of subjects when building a foundation. | |
| Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug | |
| http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html | |
| This is probably the most important book I've read and I wouldn't be surprised if it stays that way. Don't Make Me Think is about usability -- it teaches you how to build really simple websites that work. Often we complicate things when we make websites, but by reading this book you save yourself from making a ton of mistakes. | |
| Designing With Web Standards [3rd Edition] by Jeffrey Zeldman | |
| http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/ | |
| Web Standards are a set of principles and processes that should be followed when building a website. Most websites out there don't really adhere to them, and if they do it's only with a gentle nod. When you follow web standards you get a whole lot of benefits, some being less code (and less problems), better accessibility, better SEO and so on. | |
| This book isn't overly technical, but it's a really really good read for learning more about web standards, how they can be applied and why they should be. | |
| HTML and CSS books | |
| http://www.bestbooktop10.com/best-books-html-and-css.html | |
| You'll need a book on good web standards based HTML and CSS. The top book here, CSS: The Missing Manual looks good. I haven't actually got any of these books. I've learned most of what I know from around the web and some books here at home (nothing good enough to recommend though). I'd suggest getting the books here that seem good to you. The #1, #2 and #3 books all look pretty good here. | |
| DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith | |
| http://domscripting.com/book/ | |
| This book teaches you the basics of JavaScript and how you can use it to make websites more interesting, usable and engaging. Although I'm now using a library called jQuery to help me do a lot of DOM related stuff, this book provided me with a really solid foundation for doing fancy things with JavaScript. Jeremy also has a really good mind for web standards and teaches and promotes some very important principles for making sure your JavaScript enhanced sites are usable by all users. | |
| Programming Ruby | |
| http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3/programming-ruby-1-9 | |
| You might not be interested in learning about programming on the server (a.k.a back-end), but if you do I highly suggest learning how to program in Ruby. Aside from front-end web development with HTML, CSS and JavaScript; programming with Ruby basically what I do. I'd say it's 50/50 front-end back-end. | |
| Ruby is a fantastic language. Do try it out if you want to do any sort of back-end development. I initially used PHP for a few years but moved to Ruby. That was a good move! | |
| Agile Web Development with Rails | |
| http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition | |
| If you choose to go down the path of learning Ruby and using it to build dynamic websites, you'll definitely want to check out Rails. Ruby on Rails is a framework written in Ruby which is used to build websites. It helps you cover a lot of ground with minimal effort and has a really good and solid foundation. It's what I use to build sites 80% of the time. There's a lot of work out there with this, but there's also a lot of work out there for this whole area from front-end to back-end really. | |
| This is the best Rails book out there, but I need to say that there's a new version of rails, Rails 3, coming out really soon. Once it comes out a lot of what's in this book will be obsolete or changed. It might be better to wait until an updated version for Rails 3 comes out. | |
| That about covers it. There are other books I'd recommend (like Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and The Elements of Typographic Style), but for now I think this list is enough to give you a really good foundation in web design and development. |
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment