The good parts

I’ve written before about how I liked Douglas Crockford’s book JavaScript: The Good Parts and how I wish someone would write the corresponding book for R. I just found out this week that O’Reilly has published three more books along the lines of Crockford’s book:

I’m reading the HTML & CSS book. It’s a good read, but not quite what you might expect from the title. It’s not an introductory book on HTML or CSS. It assumes the reader is familiar with the basics of both languages. Instead it focuses on strategy for how to use the two languages.

HTML & CSS: The Good Parts reminds me of Scott Meyers’ Effective C++ books. These books assumed you knew the syntax of C++ but were looking for strategic advice for making the best use of the language. Some have argued that the fact Meyers needed to write these books is evidence that C++ is too complicated. The same could be said of HTML and especially CSS. Both C++ and web standards have evolved over time and are burdened with backward compatibility. But as Bjarne Stroustrup remarked

There are just two kinds of languages: the ones everybody complains about and the ones nobody uses.

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