Hey guys, I'm wanting to have a in-depth understanding of Javascript, CSS, HTML, PHP, and Jquery with some books.
I've considered using W3schools books, But i've seen a bunch of negative scores on amazon.com, I'm hoping for your guy's opinion on how I can achieve this.
Considering the content on their website, I don't think the W3Schools books would be a great option. Albeit they have good, easy to understand information for beginners on many subjects, but they seem to fall short when it comes to "in-depth".
I don't know personally, I've never used books to learn about web development, but I can say you will want to make sure you pick up a reasonably recent publication! The internet is an evolving environment, I'm sure there are many books on the subject with out-dated information.
The w3schols site is becoming rather dated with their information - particularly for those topics that have chjanged significantly since the two guys who own that site first created it. Their JavaScript seciotn for example needs an almost complete rewrite as much of the content is far more suited to Netscape 4 than it is to modern browsers.
Any books they produced would be similarly outdated as if they had the time to update the information properly for the books then they could have updated their web site with the same info.
There are lots of far better resources for most web topics out there now. The domain name for the w3schools web site has misled a lot of people into believing that it is somehow far more 'official' than other far superior sites that didn't get misleading domain names (since there is no connection whatever to the W3C standards body).
Also note and be aware that W3Schools has no relation whatsoever to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) despite the confusingly similar name – which is probably part of the (unfounded) reason why that site is so popular.
I'm not convinced that amount of hate is deserved, but some of the points they make are valid.
As for the original question, I have been a fan of the "Head First" book line for a while now. Lots of pictures, very easy writing style, gracefully takes you into the subject matter. Very well done series of programming books.
A (non-technical) book which is required reading is Steve Krug's 'Don't Make Me Think' about usability. It's pretty old now and some of the screen shots are faintly archaic, but the points it makes are as valid as ever.
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