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Subject:Re: book recommendations From:Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:32:36 -0500
>It will be hard to get an unbiased opinion, but can I get some
>recommendations for texts to learn the following:
>
>HTML
>Java
>Lotus Notes
>SQL
I've found O'Reilly books generally to be wonderful, thorough, and
well-designed reference works which do very little good for the beginner in
a given topic, but offer an excellent resource for someone with a little
familiarity with the subject. A good analogy would be a dictionary; best
place in the world to locate the meaning of words and usage information,
but a lousy way to learn a new language.
I'd actually recommend two books for the subjects. Your first book should
be a very basic piece of work, something like the "Learn x in 24 Hours"
variety (that's a series of beginner books I've found to be consistently
good for that purpose). (I can't recommend anything ending with "for
Dummies" or "for Idiots," but that I admit is a personal predjudice; go
ahead if you're willing.)
After going through this basic text, *then* go get the O'Reilly books.
You'll be better able to use them then.
As for specific recommendations not covered by the above, I have none for
Notes, Eckert's "Thinking In Java" as well as Sun's online Java tutorial
(http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ if you're interested).
The best tool for learning HTML you already have: it's called a web browser
and it comes with a handy little menu choice labelled something similar to
"view source." Liberal usage of this is the best road to learning not just
what HTML is meant to do, but what it *can* do. Take the source from a
page, and a screen shot of the page, and annotate the dickens out of that
source as you find out what each little piece is for. Just examine the
first few lines of the source for a "<meta" tag which identifies the tool
which created it, and if it says "FrontPage," move on to another site; you
won't learn anything useful about HTML from that.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
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