What books to start on web programming for an experienced non-web programmer?

Question

No surprise here, possible dupes:

Good Books for Learning Web Programming
Required Reading for a Soon to be Web Developer
and there will be more.

For a personal project, I'm starting to do some web programming using Django. I've programmed since I was very young on several languages, mostly Pascal/Delphi, C/C++, SQL Python (sometimes in other languages such as Java, PHP or Perl) so I'm not a newbie programmer, but apart from basic HTML I've little experience on the front-end side of web programming (CSS, HTML, Javascript and AJAX) because on my former professional projects if there was web programming somebody would do the frontend part.

I'm loving the Django framework but I feel very limited and lost with the frontend part and would like to improve on it. What books that wont lose 100 pages explaining what a variable or a function is would you recommend? (better if all of these technologies are covered together, but different books on each topic is Ok too)

Answer 1

I can recommend a few that I usually provide my Jr. web developers, and that I find my self referencing from time to time. These are create for basic web development, and depending on your back end server environment, you may want to purchase a books on IIS and C#, or Apache and PHP etc.

1. Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cedarholm
2. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
3. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

Answer 2

I would recommend "Javascript: The Good Parts" for an easy read while learning Javascript since you already know how to program.

Also check out this great intro to JS video of a talk at Northeastern last year:

Javascript and jQuery

Answer 3

My suggestion is: Go over to the w3schools.com tutorials on all these subjects. They will guide you through the basics to the more advanced stuff. But IMO web design needs a good eye for design; this is something which comes from practice and lots of it until you know what looks good to the end user.
I also suggest learning straight to xhtml, because it forces good syntax as has a wider range of possibilities. Another piece of advice is: don't try learning the style in html, you'll end wasting your time when you realise it can be done much faster in CSS.

Answer 4

Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman is a very good introduction into front-end best practise. I would have to say John Resig's Pro JavaScript Techniques is the best JavaScript book I've read. As for CSS, the above mentioned Bulletproof Web Design and Pro CSS Techniques (from the same publisher as Pro JavaScript Techniques) are excellent.

Answer 5

Thanks for all the answers guys, to summarize it I've saved this list:

Javascript/AJAX:

• Javascript, the definitive guide
• W3schools (already reading)
• Pro JavaScript
• Douglas Crockford's series of lectures on javascript and the DOM
• Javascript, the good parts
• DOM Scripting
• Head First JavaScript
• Foundations of Ajax

CSS/HTML:

• CSS Mastery
• Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns
• Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

Web design:

• Bulletproof web design
• Designing With Web Standards