Rating:  - It teaches HTML as a markup language, not on web design
This book is a reference book about HTML, the markup language as defined by the W3C standards. It does not teach web design. The authors often shoot down "bad habits" of HTML authors in the book, because most HTML authors attempt to use HTML to control presentation (i.e. using tables to make a layout) or to create some whiz-bang effect. HTML was never meant to control presentation, nor was it meant for people to make hacks because of deficiencies in the HTML language. People criticizing this book for a lack of web design are not understanding the point of this book.
Coverage of CSS and XHTML (the ultimate replacement of HTML) is sparse, so a 5th edition should hopefully cover more.
If you want to learn web design as is used by the industry (tables for layout, one pixel transparent gifs, Flash, etc.), you need to go to another book.
The latest browsers (NS 6.x, Opera 6.x, Konqueror, IE 6.x, etc.) are very standards-compliant. By W3C standards, presentation characteristics should be handled mostly by CSS. To learn HTML the markup language, however, this book does its job.
Rating: - Super Book for Beginners or Anyone
I didn't know anything about HTML when I started reading this book. When I finished it I understood tables, style sheets, formatting, and so much more. The authors explained everything in a way that I could understand and there were a lot of examples to show you how things work. I still use this book all the time to look up tags and attributes.
The only problem that I had with this book was the chapter on Frames. I had a heck of a time figuring them out until I went on line for help. With the information that was in the book and what I found on line I was able to get them working and now use them all the time.
This book is a must if you want to learn HTML from scratch. Or if you want a comprehensive list of all known HTML tags and attributes supported by HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0 and how they work!
Rating: - Could Not Put It Down
I found this book very interesting because I've seen and written a limited amount of html code and I was getting very confused about the latest versions, standards, browser differences, etc. This book should clear up those types of questions. They need to keep coming out with new editions though to keep up with the changes. Besides that you pick up a lot of good information about recipes using the Kumquat fruit in the sample html pages. These include pickled Kumquats, 'Quats And Kraut', and the always popular 'Quatshakes'. Rather than a koala bear on the cover this book should have a Kumquat tree showing the noble fruit glistening in the sun.
Rating: - Great book
I wouldn't recommend this book for a beginner. It has great layout, and structure, targeted at intermediate users. It does have basics for beginners, but a *dummies* or *idiots guide* has a easier layout for the "newbie". If you have some experiance and want to fine tune it I really suggest this book! It list all attributes to each tag, and describes the functions for each. Though dedicated more toward html, it does have a nice guide for converting to xhtml. Overall I'd suggest this book for the web designer, or IT specialist. Not for someone who wants to spruce up his geocities page.
Rating:  - Incomplete, poorly organized, with a terrible index
I expected this to be a solid reference of HTML 4.01. What I got was an incomplete guide, ambiguous attribute descriptions, an organization that requires one to constantly look in the index to find anything, and an index that gives multiple page references with no indication on which page an element is defined. This book provides neither guidelines on how to use HTML nor a reliable reference to its linguistic characteristics. Pass it by.
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