Book Review: The Book of CSS3
I started reading Peter Gasston's "The Book of CSS3" about a month ago and finally had time to finish it up this weekend. Here are my thoughts.
I'd like to preface my thoughts here with a saying that the publisher did send me a free copy of the book with the intention of writing up a review somewhere. However, if I thought the book was crap I would have sent it right back. You can be assured that it's a quality book and appears to be targeting at a mid-level CSS-minded designer/developer.
If you don't want to read through the whole review, I'd recommend scanning the chapter listing and if there's anything that you need real work on, go ahead and buy it. I will say that even in something I'm researching quite a bit about, I did learn elements of media queries that I didn't know beforehand.
Chapter Listing
- Introducing CSS3
- Media Queries
- Selectors
- Pseudo-classes and Pseudo-elements
- Web Fonts
- Text Effects and Typographic Styles
- Multiple Columns
- Background Images
- Border and Box effects
- Color and Opacity
- Gradients
- 2D Transformations
- Transitions and Animations
- 3D Transformations
- Flexible Box Layout
- Template Layout
- The Future of CSS
Overall Content Structure
I really liked the chapter order for the book, it made pretty good sense. Starting off with some basic things like selectors and pseudo-classes/elements; the things that are basically "hey, this is what this looks like". There isn't a whole lot you can say about CSS selectors, believe me, I've tried.
Many of the selectors mentioned in the book have been around for a very long time (in Web years), and to be honest, I was confident that they where actually in the original spec for CSS 2.1. That was a small point of confusion.
However out of place in the overall flow, I did much prefer the chapter on media queries being so far in the front (Ch. 2). After the introduction is seemed like it was amping up to be one of those books where you don't get to the really cool stuff until the end, and by the time you're there, your tired of reading.
There are a lot of surprisingly basic things to cover in CSS3 and I think Peter did a good job of architecting the information in a meaningful manner.
Things I Really Liked
I really liked the chapter on media queries and Peter's writing style; he made everything pretty easy to follow.
The chapter on WebFonts included very current examples like the bullproof @font-face syntax, which makes the book seem very timely.
Stuff I didn't find super-useful
Being completely honest, I'm tried of hearing about the template layout model. I first read about it in Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS book... 4 years ago (?). It's very cool, and kinda rocks, but being at a point where we can't get border radius and gradient working in all browsers, it's a far shot away to start using a new layout model.
The gradient chapter is a little out of date (I think the webkit syntax is changing), but that's what happens with books; they get old pretty fast. Other than that there isn't a whole lot negative about the book. It's a little late to the game in regards to how long we've been dealing with CSS3, but that also means the information is pretty solidified.
Conclusion
Overall, I did really like the book. It was well written and put together in a unique way. I am however torn in telling you if you should go out and buy it right now because I sort of feel like we've all being practicing most of the techniques in the book for a long time. I found myself getting a little bored at times reading about the color formats, selectors and older things like that.
If you're like me, you're really reading a book like this for the cutting edge elements that haven't been blogged about over and over again (chapters 13-17) and you don't want to read through the CSS3 spec (and you shouldn't, because it's awful). Those chapters are actually very good and give you a strong base in what's coming down the pipe. You can also use the other chapters to tighten up your general CSS3 knowledge.
I almost feel like I wasn't the real target audience for the book, but with that being said, I did still learn enough stuff to justify the price tag. So should you buy it? Yea, you should buy it.
Also, I really like the cover art.