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"The onslaught of quick-start books for web publishing is very reminiscent of similar publications during the early days of the desktop publishing revolution. Marketing dollars and misleading advertising promoted false claims and expectations that anyone could produce beautiful books, brochures, and newsletters with a few clicks of the mouse. The advertisements forgot to mention that various skills are required to design those beautiful pages. The rush to desktop publish brought the predictable onslaught of truly bad design, followed by the slow adoption of technology by those skilled to use it best... A similar situation exists today with the web."Designing Large-Scale Web Sites is the best high-level treatment of Web publishing that I have seen to date. It covers everything from a list of the specialists and disciplines needed for maintenance of a Web server to bandwidth considerations to the laying out forms for maximum compatibility with all types of browsers to creation of document hierarchies and navigation aids. The book includes many excellent figures illustrating the author's techniques and recommendations, as well as 8 pages of color photos.
It's hard to find a bone to pick with this timely and eminently practical book. The writing, editing, design, and typography are all considerably above the computer book industry average. The price seems a tad steep for a book of this size, but that is probably due at least partly to the color plates. A bit more depth in the sections on tables and frames would have been nice. The potential purchaser should note that portions of the design discussions rely on Netscape-specific features.
-- Ray Duncan
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Explanation of ERCB rating scale: No stars = unacceptable, 1 Star = marginal, 2 Stars = average, 3 Stars = above average, 4 Stars = exceptional.