Celebration time! Today is the eagerly awaited publication day for Integrated HTML and CSS: A Smarter, Faster Way to Learn. I wrote the book based on several years of teaching HTML and CSS at the college level.
The other books available for teaching HTML generally teach you all about HTML first and all about CSS later. I believe that the two go hand-in-hand and should be learned at the same time. There are several reasons I chose this approach:
- Almost the instant that students manage to get one word to appear on a web page, they start demanding to know how to make it look better: how to change the color or the font or the placement. The only way to meet those demands with standards-based code is by using CSS.
- Having the awareness of what you intend to do with CSS as you create XHTML helps you write web pages that are CSS-ready. It helps you structure your pages with various hooks, handles, and holders meant for styling with CSS.
- Learning to write XHTML with CSS in mind helps you design pages that work in modern browsers, download quickly, are accessible, and hold up well over time. These are design skills that help students when they reach the job market.
This book is for beginners in HTML and CSS, or for people who already know HTML but are beginners at CSS. My great hope for the book is that teachers and students will find it valuable.