I try to stay away from the series as they use way too many cartoons, pictures, and other noisy distractions. They claim that readers benefit from that sort of exposure to multiple media, but it is actually the opposite. Pages look like those annoying websites with ad banners.

Good afternoon, beginner web-developer.
This book will open the door for web development for you, the material is presented as accessible as possible for a beginner, everything is as it should be kosher. Along with this book I read a couple of others in general, earth and sky. I like the whole series of Head first + can be downloaded, but not even you need additional material on the textbook on the official website. There, of course, a little crutches, but you can figure it out. Bottom line: I recommend it to everyone.

Really enjoyed it, it was surrpisingly easy to read. Explained all the rules and pricniples well. I was thinking about our production code all the time while reading it.

I've actually bought several from this series, after reading this book. I keep it right there on my bookshelf and have actually read it twice. I found their tutorials to be particularly useful.

Super great book to get you into it!

I'm not done with this one yet, but I have to say it's one of the easiest training guides I've ever picked up. If it sometimes it gets a little patronizing in its quest to be approachable, the method seems to work in the end...I actually read half of this book in one weekend. It also has exercises you get to do during every chapter, which I always love.

I actually brought this book on the train with me for pleasure-reading while I was commuting. I found this book on the shelf in the library while looking for a book on PHP, and something about the look of its spine had me pull it down and browse through it. I wasn't sure about the layout of the book at first (it's full of pictures, asides, and "handwritten" notes), but it seemed interesting enough that I thought I'd take it home with me and look through it. Now, I consider myself pretty well versed in HTML basics, but I knew I could use some brushing up, and my CSS skills are pretty weak, so I started in on it. The first half of the book was all review, but it was such an engaging review that I actually read through it all. The second half of the book started touching on things I didn't know or was shaky on, and I felt like it explained things very well. I actually ended up buying myself a copy of the book to keep as a reference manual, becuase I felt like it had excellent breadth and does a really good job of guiding someone from absolute beginner to standards- and accessibility-savvy on a number of different topics. If you consider yourself beginner to intermediate in creating web pages, and especially if you get bored with the standard way computer manuals and reference books are written, this is a good book to look at. It's published by O'Reilly, which I didn't realize at first, but it really is a serious and smart book dressed up in flashier clothing.

Head First has a fantastic teaching formula that really worked for me. I'd recommend any from this series if you need to learn what they're teaching.

I've read two HTML books in my life now. The first was back in the early 1990s when  was considered neat. This one I read to brush up on HTML but mostly to learn all about CSS. I started another book but realized I didn't have the fundamentals down so went for something easy to get started with. This book fit the bill. It is relatively complete in its coverage of XHTML and CSS (at least at the level I was interested in) and did it in an easy to read manner. I've also read the AJAX book but didn't like it nearly as much.

Anyway, this is a pretty good read. Lots of geeky examples (Buckaroo Banzai references, that sort of thing). I'd recommend it.

I LOVE THIS BOOK! Sometimes it's a bore to get through these books, but this book was very interesting. I read it straight through. It was useful and informative, easy to follow. I just got the their book on Javascript, and hoping there's one for PHP. The book said PHP was coming out in 2006, but I haven't found it.

These are quality books. Expensive though.

I liked the progression of chapters - not too much in each.

Surprisingly the crossword puzzles at chapter's end were a useful revision aid.

Only criticism - physically a very heavy book.