Want to see more?
View favorite books from other authors.
|
|
|
We asked some of our (and your!) favorite authors to share with us their
favorite 10 computer books from the past 10 years. Here's what we got back.
|
Eric A. Meyer has been working with the Web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is also the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting (http://www.complexspiral.com), which focuses on helping clients save money and increase efficiency through the use of standards oriented Web design techniques and counts Macromedia and Wells Fargo Bank among its clients.
Beginning in early 1994, Eric was the visual designer and campus Web coordinator for Case Western Reserve University Web site. There he also authored a widely acclaimed series of three HTML tutorials and was project coordinator for the online version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Combined with the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography (ech.cwru.edu), it was the first example of an encyclopedia of urban history being fully and freely published on the Web.
Author of Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design (New
Riders), Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly & Associates), and CSS2.0 Programmer's Reference (Osborne/McGrawHill), as well as numerous articles for the O'Reilly Network, Web Techniques, and Web Review, Eric also created the CSS Browser Compatibility Charts and coordinated the authoring and creation of the W3C's official CSS Test Suite. He has lectured to a wide variety of organizations, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, the New York Public Library, Cornell University, and the University of Northern Iowa. Eric has also delivered addresses and technical presentations at numerous conferences, among them the IW3C2 WWW series, Web Design World, CMP, SXSW, the User Interface conference series, and The Other Dreamweaver Conference.
In his personal time, Eric acts as List Chaperone of the highly active
cssdiscuss mailing list (http://www.css-discuss.org), which he co-founded with John Allsopp of Western Civilisation and is now supported by evolt.org. Eric lives in Cleveland, Ohio, which is a much nicer city than you've been led to believe, and is the host of "Your Father's Oldsmobile," a Big Bandera radio show heard weekly on WRUW 91.1FM in Cleveland (http://www.wruw.org). When not otherwise busy, he is usually bothering his wife Kat in some fashion.
|
Eric's favorite books: |
 Designing with Web Standards, 2nd Edition by Jeffrey Zeldman --
A highly readable and well-reasoned book that makes the case for using open standards in web design, and then shows how it's done. In the process, it never once loses sight of the real world. Highly, highly recommended.
(The author's original choice was an older edition that is now out of print. This link is to the new edition now available)
 Integrated Web Design: Building the New Breed of Designer & Developer by Molly E. Holzschlag --
The holistic approach of this book bringing together technology, psychology, color theory, typography, and graphic design considerations is just fascinating to me. The cover's darned pretty, too.
by Andrew B. King --
I don't know about you, but I'm a really impatient web surfer. This book is cornucopia of tips and tricks to make your web site as fast as it can be. Read and follow its advice so I'll be less annoyed, all right? Thanks.
 Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug --
Sure, you've created the most useful web site ever created by the hand of man, but can anyone actually use it? Find out with this book. A classic, a quick read, and an essential part of any designer's library.
 Defensive Design for the Web by 37signals --
It's easy to overlook the "something broke" case what to do when someone tries to load an nonexistent page, for example, or a page gets moved to a new URL. This great little book helps you help your users with a great compare and contrast approach using real world examples, many of them lifted from the sites we all use day in and day out.
 Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition by Jennifer Niederst --
The book that launched a thousand careers, this is a great overview of the various bits and pieces that go into web design. Also, it uses the Sifl and Olly web site for its examples. Can't beat that!
(The author's original choice was an older edition that is now out of print. This link is to the current edition)
 JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition by David Flanagan --
Everything a reference book should be, and next to nothing it shouldn't. The second edition got me through many a cross-browser scripting nightmare, and the fourth edition is useful beyond all reason.
(The author's original choice was an older edition that is now out of print. This link is to the the current edition)
 Perl Cookbook, 2nd Edition by Tom Christiansen, et al --
I learn much better by following examples than I do by studying theory, and I can usually adapt an existing script to my needs, even when I'm not a pro at the language. Thus, cookbooks are essential to my continued professional survival, and this is one of the best.
 Mac OS X Panther Hacks by Rael Dornfest, et al --
As much as I love having an OS that stays out of my way and lets me get work done, I also love being able to pop the hood and really tinker with the guts. This book helped me take OS X to the next level of usefulness and power.
 The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond --
A passionate argument for "the other way" of creating software. Regardless of how you feel about Raymond, he lays out a compelling case and makes you think about what we often accept without question.
|
|
