Core Web Programming

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Ptr, 1997. Very Good. Becoming a Web developer these days requires expertise in a variety of disp arate languages and tools and usually requires a whole shelf of books. Core Web Programming delivers all you need to become a competent Web developer in one massive text. It covers HTML, Java, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and JavaScript thoroughly with plenty of real-world programming examples. The first part of the book covers HTML 3.2, including the basic tags and mo re advanced topics such as frames and cascading style sheets. This section discusses Netscape and Microsoft extensions to HTML (such as using plug-ins for playing multimedia content and ActiveX controls). The tutorial to HTML is comparable to those in other books of this category and includes some o f the author's tips for creating more portable HTML. The next section covers the basics of Java from a programmer's standpoint, including the advantages of Java and how to access Java documentation and t ools. The tutorial that follows stresses the built-in libraries in core Jav a, covering drawing images and other graphics capabilities. Event handling in Java Developer's Kit (JDK) 1.02 (probably unnecessary these days) and JD K 1.1 receive full treatment. The chapter on graphics double-buffering for smooth animation within Java programs is particularly useful, and the autho r's treatment of how to access the network capabilities of Java is perhaps unmatched. (Topics here include how to load URLs using Java's network class es and even how to create a simple HTTP server in Java.) The third section of this text moves to CGI programming using Java on the server. The author introduces the basi.