Some of you are aware that I've been quietly collecting vote for the best web development books available. After roughly three weeks, I'm ready to reveal the results. The books will be categorized according to their subject matter.
CSS
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CSS Mastery
By bringing all of the latest tips, tricks, and techniques together in one handy reference, this book demystifies the secrets of CSS and makes the journey to CSS mastery as simple and painless as possible. While most books concentrate on basic skills, this one is different, assuming that you already know the basics and why you should be using CSS in your work, and concentrating mainly on advanced techniques.
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Transcending CSS
In this groundbreaking book, you’ll discover how to implement highly original designs through visual demonstrations of the creative possibilities using markup and CSS. You’ll learn to use a new design workflow, build prototypes that work well for designers and all team members, use grids effectively, visualize markup, and discover every phase of the transcendent design process, from working with the latest browsers to incorporating CSS3 to collaborating with team members effectively.
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The CSS Anthology
The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks is a compilation of best practice solutions to the most challenging CSS problems. The second edition of this best-selling book, now in full color, has been completely revised and updated to cover the latest techniques and newer browsers, including Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.
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The Zen Of CSS
Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS.
Javascript
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Pro Javascript Techniques
Pro JavaScript Techniques is the ultimate JavaScript book for the modern web developer. It provides everything you need to know about modern JavaScript, and shows what JavaScript can do for your web sites. This book doesnt waste any time looking at things you already know, like basic syntax and structures.
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Learning jQuery
Query is a powerful JavaScript library that can enhance your websites regardless of your background. In this book, creators of the popular jQuery learning resource, learningquery.com, share their knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm about jQuery to help you get the most from the library and to make your web applications shine. For designers, jQuery leverages existing CSS and HTML skills, allowing you to dynamically find and change any aspect of a page.
PHP
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PHP Solutions
The book has been written with an eye on forward and backward compatibility recommending the latest PHP 5 techniques, but providing alternative solutions for servers still running PHP 4.3.
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THE PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks and Hacks
The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, 2nd Edition is a collection of powerful PHP 5 solutions to the most common programming problems.
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PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites
When static HTML pages no longer cut it, you need to step up to dynamic, database-driven sites that represent the future of the Web. In PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide, the author of best-selling guides to both the database program (MySQL) and the scripting language (PHP) returns to cover the winning pair in tandem-the way users work with them today to build dynamic sites using Open Source tools.
Web Standards
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Don't Make Me Think
The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions, such as "We don't read pages--we scan them" and "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through." Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.
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Bullet Proof Web Design
No matter how visually appealing or content-packed a Web site may be, if it's not adaptable to a variety of situations and reaching the widest possible audience, it isn't really succeeding. In Bulletproof Web Desing, author and Web designer extraordinaire, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control--key components of every sucessful site.
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Designing With Web Standards
Standards, argues Jeffrey Zeldman in Designing With Web Standards, are our only hope for breaking out of the endless cycle of testing that plagues designers hoping to support all possible clients. In this book, he explains how designers can best use standards--primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the standard Document Object Model (DOM)--to increase their personal productivity and maximize the availability of their creations.
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The Principles Of Beautiful Web Design
The Principles Of Beautiful Web Design is a simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.
Flash
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How To WOW With Flash
Flash powerhouse—Colin Smith—renowned author, Web designer, and trainer, has developed an effective way to help you reach your full creative potential. Just like great cookbooks—the ones with short, clear-cut instructions and mouth-watering photos of the delectable concoctions—this book identifies challenges, provides simple recipes for overcoming them, and plugs in inspirational full-color photos of the glorious results.
All The Others
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Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual
This new version of the popular web design software offers a rich environment for building professional sites, with drag-and-drop simplicity, clean HTML code, and dynamic database-driven web site creation tools. Moreover, it's now integrated more tightly with Adobe's other products: Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, and their siblings. But with such sophisticated features, the software isn't simple. So say hello to Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual, the fifth edition of this bestselling book by experienced web site trainer and author David McFarland.
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Building Websites With Joomla
This is the best-selling Joomla! tutorial guide - which was recently updated for the latest 1.5 release.
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Simply Rails 2
Unlike other Rails books, this book doesn't assume that you are an experienced web developer, or that you've used Ruby before. An entire chapter is devoted to learning Ruby in a fun way, using the interactive Ruby console, so you can follow along at home. You'll be an accomplished Ruby programmer in no time!
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Pro Drupal Development
Assuming you already know how to install and bring a standard installation online, John K. VanDyk gives you everything else you need to customize your Drupal installation however you see fit. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition delves deep into Drupal internals, showing you how to take full advantage of its powerful architecture.
What Was The Most Voted Book?
It's no surprise, "Don't Make Me Think" was easily the favorite. Are there books that we missed? Leave a comment and let us know. If you enjoyed this collection, please submit it to Digg, DZone, StumbleUpon, etc.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Ben Mills August 22nd
Man.. I just started using that new site Readernaut.com and I found a bunch more books I need to read, now with this article I’m going to have enough books for the rest of the year to read!
( )Jay August 22nd
I believe Simon Collison’s CSS Professional Web Development should have been on that list.
( )Taylor Satula August 22nd
Great choce of books. I <3 The CSS books the most
( )Joe Casabona August 22nd
Great list! I was thinking about buying the jQuery one, and Bulletproof Web Design has helped me in countless ways.
( )Jeffrey Way August 22nd
@Joe – “Learning jQuery” is a fantastic book. I highly recommend it. “jQuery In Action” is good too.
( )Dan Harper August 22nd
The ones I’ve read from the list, and loved:
CSS Anthology — got my vote on the list
PHP Anthology
Principles Of Beautiful Web Design
(yeah, SitePoint are awesome!)
I’m going to order “Learning jQuery” in a few days, and may buy “Simply Rails 2″ (or some other Rails book).
Great list!
( )Jamie Lottering August 22nd
I’d love to see a NETTTUTS / PSDTUTS book one day
( )Craigsnedeker August 22nd
That’d be awesome Jamie!!!
( )Justin August 22nd
A good book recommendation on learning basic Apache (to go with the Rails stuff) would be nice.
( )Richard Neary August 22nd
Nice list, Agile Web Development with Rails: Second Edition, 2nd Edition is also a very good book for those wishing to learn ruby on rails.
http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails2/agile-web-development-with-rails
( )Thomasz August 22nd
Nice books set, but i think 2 should be there at last.
( )Eric A. Meyer CSS part 1&2
if you want to learn or practice CSS you have to read it.
I am webdesigner from 3 years, but i still looking in to this books.
It’s better than css editor
Shane August 22nd
I’d definitely go with Zeldman’s book, Learning jQuery.
One glaring omission:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526870/
( )Ben Griffiths August 22nd
Some good books there, looks like I need to update the bookshelf!
( )Dale Cruse August 22nd
With few exceptions, this list contains relatively new books. Here are some old school books that I (and many others at the height of the dot-com era) cut my teeth on. Each is at least as influential as any other book already on the list.
“Designing Web Usability” by Jakob Nielsen
( )“Taking Your Talent to the Web” by Jeffrey Zeldman
“Being Digital” by Nicholas Negroponte
Hakon Wium Lee’s CSS book
Liz Castro’s HTML book
James August 22nd
I’d also like to recommend the only JavaScript book which Doug Crockford actually approves of -> JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition
( )Sean Nieuwoudt August 22nd
Great list! thanx
( )Addison Kowalski August 22nd
Ew to ‘Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual.’
( )Freddie August 22nd
Fortunately a good number of these books are in my bookshelves. In any case I think that a good book of inspiration is “Web Standard Creativity” that I have voted.
( )Thanks for this post.
Michael Thompson August 22nd
Too much PHP, too little (zero) Django.
( )Jason R. August 22nd
A definite miss:
( )DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model
by: Jeremy Keith
Vince August 22nd
A few of the selections that I’ve actually read are great shining examples. “Don’t make me think” is excellent as well as “Bulletproof webdesign.”
That being said there are some terrible examples, and I am not quite sure how they made the list of “Best Web Development Books” even if they were voted in.
The Principles Of Beautiful Web Design is terrible and shows no insight into “Beautiful Design” as the title would suggest. Yes there are some great examples within the pages. But IMHO, the end result is terrible.
Also Dreamweaver book? please, yes I can imagine all the “dreamweaver is a great tool” responses. But it isn’t IF you use the WYSIWYG. It makes terrible code, I’m not talking about the people that use dreamweaver in code view only.
Im talking about people who are learning. For learners it takes awhile to wean from the WYSIWYG and I think that just slows you down as a developer. Get rid of the crutch, and learn how to hand code it all.
I’ve seen so many people that, “Use dreamweaver, but understand coding” then when it comes time to do a real project they fall flat on their face. “I need to use it to speed up the process.” no you don’t, you need it to write the things that you don’t fully understand, and dreamweaver is happy to be a enabler for you.
You don’t need a “missing manual” to enhance the use of a development crutch. You need to set the crutch on fire.
( )Rick August 22nd
Seems to me that most of these books aren’t web development books. Title’s a bit misleading.
( )insic August 22nd
I look forward in reading one of them.
( )James August 22nd
Actually I would like to reiterate what Vince said… “Principles of Beautiful web design” is not really great at all. The guy who wrote it goes through the motions of detailing design principles such as color theory and the rule of thirds and then tries to demonstrate their effectiveness in an example design which, in my opinion turns out to be quite out-dated. A good “design” book would discuss the principles surrounding internet design.
What most people fail to realize is the obvious difference between print design and website design. Print design is about stylistic structuring of graphics and content leaning towards more traditional principles of typography, however, web design is about information architecture and the ability to effectively display large amounts of information in an easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate manner. In “Principles of beautiful web design” I don’t think the author mentions information architecture.
Not trying to stray off the point here but this is what I hate about some sites. The designers pretend that they’re designing a poster! … Ignorance is irritating!!!
( )Jay August 22nd
Can we get a list for best Photoshop books as well at PSDTUTS?
Am I the only one who prefer to read the w3.org CSS online manual?
( )Connor August 22nd
Good List!
( )Tom August 22nd
Any book from Sitepoint? Are we missing something here?
( )Tyron Love August 22nd
I agree with James. I’m the only web designer in a studio full of graphic designers and it’s a struggle to work with designers who do not understand how the web works. Too many designers win awards and praise for the way a site looks and not how a site works… blah, blah…
A great book I would recommend for anyone writing for the web is “Hot Text” by John and Lisa Price
( )Paul August 23rd
I voted for CSS Mastery, but have quite a few of those books myself. The older Larry Ullman PHP5 is on my shelf, don’t see any reason to read about PHP6 yet.
( )Philo August 23rd
Great List!
( )Azizur Rahman August 23rd
Since NETTUTS published so many articles on WordPress, I am but sad to see no WordPress books were recommended!
I don’t mind spoon feeding web skills but sometimes its also good to teach a person to feed themselves. I guess that may break the NETTUTS business model.
Overall its all great I have read a few of them. Keep up the good work guy!
( )Steven August 23rd
Great List. I’ve checked on Amazon and the book on Learning Joomla has really bad comments. Also if you could post a double link for Amazon UK, it’s just for your affiliate revenue
( )cheese August 23rd
“The Principles Of Beautiful Web Design” has got NOTHING to do with web standards
( )cheese August 23rd
Glad to read other people thought that principles book was poor as well, the site he builds thoughout is really ugly and old fashioned, and nowhere near the level of all the amazing designs he links to on the way. don’t waste your money on this.
( )Jeffrey Way August 23rd
@Everyone – Yeah, I agree about the “Principles Of Beautiful Web Design” book. But, I didn’t choose this list. The readers did. So, people must be getting something out of it…somehow.
@Azizur – I, too, was surprised that nobody voted for a Wordpress book.
( )WRONG August 23rd
Whaaaaat? these results are skewed. Not an accurate list.
“Simply Rails” beating Agile Web Development 2nd? I know it’s a little dated but… PLEASE. The numbers and reviews on Amazon speak for themselves.
Sitepoint fanboys-only voting or what? A dreamweaver book in the mix?
Could you post some more details on how the list was made? How many voted? Where did traffic come from etc?
( )Braden Keith August 23rd
Time to start cracking. I see some books that I’d like to read.
I don’t really read books on web design, I don’t have that much time to but I find my information online ie: forums. Good list though
( )Anthony Ettinger August 23rd
Jeremy Keith’s “DOM Scripting” *was* definitely an over site not to be on the list.
( )Joefrey Mahusay August 24th
Great list of books. My fave are CSS Mastery, Pro Drupal Development and Designing With Web Standards.
( )Manfred August 24th
Steve Krugs book, Dont make me think – has NOTHING to do with web standards, is a book about usability. I think its a book that everyone that is working with webdesign and/or webdeveloping should read. It would do the web much better.
( )Josh August 24th
Pretty good list. I read The Zen Of CSS a while back. It’s a good read, I will have to check out some of these others.
( )stan August 24th
No love for asp.net? We have feelings too you know…
( )Jeffrey Way August 25th
@Stan – I know. I personally voted for “Professional ASP.NET 3.5″ by Wrox. But, there weren’t enough votes to get it on the list.
( )Jason Beaird August 25th
I’m honored to see that The Principles of Beautiful Web Design made this list. While the naysayers are right that it isn’t a web development book, it was written for developers with one very simple objective: introduce classic graphic design and color theory to non-designers who (more and more often) have to make design decisions.
I understand and share the animosity toward print designers who don’t understand the web as a design medium, but that’s no excuse for indignant opinions about design itself. I think we all need to let go of the age old designer vs. developer feud and do some cross-specialization learning. Yes, information architecture and interface design are key components to designing for the modern web, but that was outside the scope of this book. There is something else in the works from Sitepoint (hint, hint) that will address these topics fairly soon, but that’s all the details I have.
Back on the topic, this is a great list of must-have development books.
( )While we’re all adding suggestions though:
“Web Standards Creativity” was a great book and an interesting peek into the process of 10 outstanding designers.
Also, I learned Rails with “The Pragmatic Programmer’s Agile Web Development with Rails” and thought it did the job very well.
James August 25th
Great list.
I noticed there’s a more recent ‘Transcending CSS’ book with a similar design but different author. Which is the one to go for?
( )Jonathan August 26th
CSS mastery is the Best, you will learn a lot.
( )web tasarımı August 26th
great books, my best choice is the zen of css design.
( )Chris Robinson August 26th
Great books, have a few of them. However I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out and spend $30 – $60 on anyone one of these, when most of the techniques and information is available online for free.
Google is your friend.
Unless you like spending money on things that you’ll look at once and throw on the shelf. Just my opinion.
( )Thomas Hansen August 26th
@Chris
( )Also there are in fact FREE books online like the “How to create an Ajax Library”. So far only the first half of it is out, but that’s also the “JavaScript parts” which can be found at; http://ra-ajax.org/how-to-create-an-ajax-library-part-2-the-basic-javascript-oo-concerns.blog
Jatin Meshiya September 1st
i have heard all about this books but no one has provided the free links or free books. i need it but i can not purchase it. i am not able to do so. i am a wedesigner-developer (sorry i want to be). if some one help me to get it i promisse within short span of time i will pay all of its price. is there any budy to help
help help please help
( )rat idur October 14th
Hi Jatin Meshiya Contact me on my email ‘ r a t i d u r AT g m a i l DOT c o m’. I have most of them with me. me be i can help you.
( )emoboy October 25th
Cheers, Look at the pictures of my new emo hair
( )on http://xrl.us/ouog2
argisht November 24th
hello Jatin Meshiya message me on argishtv AT g M a i l DOT c o m and i will buy you the book
( )Koistya `Navin January 10th
And here is my list of Web Development related Books:
http://www.riaguy.com/books/
( )Giselle July 9th
good list, I’ve read most of them and want to add the rest to my library
( )bims July 19th
Unless you like spending money on things that you’ll look at once and throw on the shelf. Just my opinion.
( )ceza July 20th
Hi Jatin Meshiya Contact me on my email ‘ r a t i d u r AT g m a i l DOT c o m’. I have most of them with me. me be i can help you.
( )serhan July 31st
I bought one! Very helpful
( )taraftar atkısı August 22nd
very interesting!
thank you!
( )promosyon tekstil imalat August 22nd
very interesting!
thank you!
( )granit küp taş August 31st
thanks for the article. it is so nice to read.
( )dizi forum October 31st
great list.thankyou
( )