Ask HN: As a programmer, what would you be looking for in a HTML & CSS book? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As a programmer, what would you be looking for in a HTML & CSS book?

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I'm starting to write an e-book about HTML & CSS. My intent is to target complete beginners and graphic designers, but also developers who are mostly familiar with back-end technologies (object-oriented programming, server configuration, database manipulation...).

If you are such a developer looking to better understand how the front-end works, what exactly would you be willing to learn? Or what is something about CSS that your mind just can't grasp?

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Great news. As a member of your target audience I'm excited to be able to provide so thoughts on what I would find helpful. My main complaint with a lot of the beginner HTML/CSS books is that they approach the subject from a static perspective. They seem to assume that I'm only interested in creating a simple static website when in fact I suspect anyone who's learning HTML/CSS is doing so implicitly because they want to learn how to ultimately create dynamic database-backed web apps. A book that approached the topic with that in mind from the get go would be much appreciated. Also, one of the major topics I think is overlooked is the PROCESS odd designing and creating a real web app UI. As a beginner, I'd very much like some insight into how one goes about creating a web app using HTML/CSS...I.e., what process do you follow when attempting to realize an idea you have in your head or which you have sketched out. I would also like extensive coverage of how to use all the standard tools which are now very common and which attempt to make it easier to develop well-laid out attractive web apps: twitter bootstrap, foundation 4, CDS preprocessors, grid layouts, etc. These things are becoming as important as simply knowing about HTML/CSS. I guess what I'm saying is that we don't necessarily need another book which teaches basic HTML/CSS (tags, and so forth), we need a book that closes the gap between such books and the more advanced topics like HTML5 (I.e., adding JS/jQuery functionality to a web site). I hope this ramble has been helpful. Thanks for asking for input!

Thanks for the insight.

Your comment will probably lead me to write a book solely targeting programmers, instead of trying to target beginners and graphic designers as well.

What is it about creating a HTML/CSS web app that is hard to grasp?

One of the issues I face is that simple CSS illustrations demonstrate interplay of positional effects between one or two items. The same positional effects give a different effect when in a multilayer container. What is the general guideline for wire-framing an app?

I like examples, how things work, but not a lot of fluff...

Two books permanently on my shelf for CSS and HTML are Stylin' with CSS by Charles Wyke-Smith, and Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML by Elizabeth Castro. Both books covered the basics enough to get a grasp of the big picture.

Mainly if I had a question about where X goes where and what Y does, I could find an direct answer from these books usually with an example if applicable.

There are probably a bunch of common front-end situations you could cover in a book would be great (AJACX search queries, the basics of responsive design (it all starts in the CSS) etc.

And another suggestion - avoid using frameworks. You want your book to last, don't use some framework-du-jour, keep it vanilla and then let the reader decide what framework would better fit their work later on. If you do use frameworks - make sure the framework is listed in the title or content info so folks can decide if that would be useful for them.

To me it is not so much about the syntax of HTML/CSS itself which I can of course google etc, the biggest challenge is how to put a sketch/wireframe/concept to HTML/CSS version. How do i create the layout ? Where do I position a section ? How do I decide if I should create nested rows vs columns vs what not. These are the things that are so difficult to me as a programmer who just barely hacks some bootstrap/zurb themes.

layouts. I still can't make head & tail out of it. I found tables easier.

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