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WebMaster in a Nutshell consists of 26 chapters divided into five sections: HTML, CGI, HTTP, JavaScript, and Server Configuration. Much of the material is based on, or adapted from, other Web-related O'Reilly books such as Musciano and Kennedy's HTML: The Definitive Guide, Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, and Gundavaram's CGI Programming on the World Wide Web. As with other O'Reilly handbooks, there's wildlife on the cover, but this time it's an spider instead of some obscure vertebrate, and a rather nasty-looking rascal at that.
The HTML section is the most valuable, covering all of the currently-used tags -- along with browser dependencies, tables of character entities, and reserved color names -- clearly and concisely. The CGI section is something of a mish-mosh of HTML form tags, CGI environment variables, server-side includes, and PERL operators and functions. PERL probably should have been given its own section and the material considerably fleshed out. The usefulness of the JavaScript section is, like JavaScript itself, unclear at this point.
I suppose the relevance of the remaining two sections depends largely on what O'Reilly sees as the audience for this book. Certainly most people who call themselves WebMasters these days would have little occasion to turn to the HTTP and Server Management sections; routine operation of a commercial Web server rarely brings one into intimate contact with HTTP protocol issues, and the Server Management discussion is limited to UNIX HTTP daemons and O'Reilly's WebSite product for Windows NT and Windows-95.
After putting WebMaster in a Nutshell to the test in my own work environment over the last couple of months, my impression is that the authors tried to cover too much ground. The overall concept is reasonable, and the book is definitely useful in its present form, but I hope that O'Reilly will rethink the contents and audience carefully before releasing the next edition.
-- 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.