There are a lot of ebooks out there for tech, and a lot of them are free. They make for a very cheap approach to keeping your skills up to date. Some are better than others, though, and today we review one such book that came along with the best of intentions but failed to make the grade.
Building Better Responsive Websites is available on Amazon at the time of writing for zero dollars and zero cents — a good bargain. However, the book fails to deliver on its title, introducing the reader to HTML and CSS but then forgetting to touch on responsiveness, media queries, and the like.
A light, approachable tone and a structure similar to that of a “For Dummies” book beckon the reader, but poor spelling and formatting take their toll:
Additionally, though published recently (in 2016), the screenshots in Building come from Windows XP, which is not an encouraging sight. Other notable anomalies include failing to mention Gimp in a list of free image editing tools.
The book’s approach to designing basic sites is encouraging enough, building from the ground up and using similes with everyday scenarios to reinforce differences between style and content, but the lessons smack of old approaches and old code.
Despite its grammatical failings, I would have been glad to recommend this book some number of years ago — but today it simply does not keep pace with even the more basic of online tutorials, much less other books.
Unfortunately, this is one free ebook you should probably give a pass.