That is just wrong, secure software is created by good design, good practice, and good tools. Your analogy sucks, even if you're careful and pay attention you can still lose a finger banging a nail in with an axe. With a little but of luck you'll hit an artery and improve the gene pool in the process.
OK, I read the book and I agree completely with the message. And I read and enjoy Zeldman's site, it's a great source for what's happening in web design. But his writing style doesn't work on paper. He has a hugely irritating habit of adding unnecessary asides wrapped in parentheses into the main text of the book, often referencing other parts of the book. It's like he's itching to put in a link, but guess what - links don't work on paper. Have you heard of sidebars at all Jeffrey?
My other major beef with the book is the lack of meat. It's a history lesson on the browser wars and a white paper on why web standards are good. A book about building web pages using standards that doesn't get to "CSS Basics" until chapter 9?
If you want to get hands on with web standards, i.e. using css for layout, buy Eric Meyer's book Eric Meyer on CSS. Read chapter 1, do the exercise, suddenly it all becomes very obvious.
Andrew King's book Speed Up Your Site is the most enlightening book I've read in a year; well organised, well structured, readable, teeming with useful information, and it's published by New Riders.
Eric Meyer on CSS, also New Riders, comes a close second. Rule of thumb, there's dog food in any stable.
There is one book I have found brilliant as a tutorial for css - Eric Meyer's Eric Meyer on CSS. It is a great way to learn css, each chapter is a project, and the projects are challenging and informative.
Also worth a mention (although why I should be giving him another free plug when his name is plastered over the sites and blogs of anyone who knows what CSS stands for - hint: it isn't cross-site scripting) is Zeldman and his new book designing with web standards. I'm a third of the way through it and it is an engaging read but I'm still looking for the meat.
Otherwise there are a bunch of on-line resources at W3C.
BTW, it's worth persevering, I recently replaced a gif menu and javascript rollovers with the equivalent xhtml/css and knocked over 20K off the homepage. Performance improved enough for customers to contact my employer to comment and that's feedback worth getting.
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That is just wrong, secure software is created by good design, good practice, and good tools. Your analogy sucks, even if you're careful and pay attention you can still lose a finger banging a nail in with an axe. With a little but of luck you'll hit an artery and improve the gene pool in the process.
OK, I read the book and I agree completely with the message. And I read and enjoy Zeldman's site, it's a great source for what's happening in web design. But his writing style doesn't work on paper. He has a hugely irritating habit of adding unnecessary asides wrapped in parentheses into the main text of the book, often referencing other parts of the book. It's like he's itching to put in a link, but guess what - links don't work on paper. Have you heard of sidebars at all Jeffrey?
My other major beef with the book is the lack of meat. It's a history lesson on the browser wars and a white paper on why web standards are good. A book about building web pages using standards that doesn't get to "CSS Basics" until chapter 9?
If you want to get hands on with web standards, i.e. using css for layout, buy Eric Meyer's book Eric Meyer on CSS. Read chapter 1, do the exercise, suddenly it all becomes very obvious.
The RFC 2616 - IETF Draft Standard (June 1999) is available in a number of formats at W3C, including pdf.
It's a useful reference and I keep a copy on my desk. If you think you're a web developer and you aren't familiar with http you're sadly deluded.
Dave
Andrew King's book Speed Up Your Site is the most enlightening book I've read in a year; well organised, well structured, readable, teeming with useful information, and it's published by New Riders. Eric Meyer on CSS, also New Riders, comes a close second. Rule of thumb, there's dog food in any stable.
There is one book I have found brilliant as a tutorial for css - Eric Meyer's Eric Meyer on CSS. It is a great way to learn css, each chapter is a project, and the projects are challenging and informative.
Also worth a mention (although why I should be giving him another free plug when his name is plastered over the sites and blogs of anyone who knows what CSS stands for - hint: it isn't cross-site scripting) is Zeldman and his new book designing with web standards. I'm a third of the way through it and it is an engaging read but I'm still looking for the meat.
Otherwise there are a bunch of on-line resources at W3C.
BTW, it's worth persevering, I recently replaced a gif menu and javascript rollovers with the equivalent xhtml/css and knocked over 20K off the homepage. Performance improved enough for customers to contact my employer to comment and that's feedback worth getting.
Dave