Head First HTML5 Programming by Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson


Summary: The very basics of HTML5

This is another book related to HTML 5. As I really want to learn HTML5 well I am going over through different HTML5 related titles recently. This time, book comes from the Head First’s stable. If you know Head First already, you know what to expect. If you are not familiar with the series, everything is just ahead of you.

Book covers, in my opinion, the very basics of the HTML5. This way, you will be able to learn step by step how to build HTML5 based web pages. When it comes to the content, one third of the book is devoted to Java Script. At some point this is important, because HTML5 is heavily based on Java Script. On the other hand, if you are experienced developer, going through all these ifs, whiles and fors will be definitely boring. However, if you haven’t done web based development since you are desktop only developer, Head First’s way explanation of basics concepts might be useful.

There is one, quite big issue with this book. You will miss the samples. You are not able to download example code which makes it hard to follow the book. This refers to all the places where you simply want to check whether code works or not in your browser.

Update: Examples have been published and are available here. At the bottom of the page.

Product page: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920010906.do

Comments (2)

anonymousDecember 6th, 2011 at 12:07 am

Good afternoon,

Great review. I have also been working through (and really liking) my own copy of Head First HTML5 Programming this week. It just so happens that I’m also an O’Reilly employee and wanted to let you know that you can find the example file downloads for this book in “full” (427 megs) and “video-free” (only 2 megs) at the bottom of the Head First Labs:

http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml5prog/

I’m also in the process of linking this into the book’s catalog page that you linked to so it will be a lot easier for others to find these as well.

Sorry for the confusion!

anonymousDecember 6th, 2011 at 6:28 am

Great to hear! I will check the examples – for sure.

Thank you for the information!