Note regarding ‘Webdesign in de praktijk’
Book
This is a note about the Dutch book entitled ‘Webdesign in de praktijk’, written by Peter Kentie (with text contributions by several other authors). I bought it on 8 December 2001 and since then have learnt a lot from it.
Because of that, I mentioned it in two web pages ( 1 , 2 ) written in 2002, and recommended the book because I liked it myself.
In the English language versions of these pages of mine,
I referred to an English edition of the same book,
entitled
“Web Design” (subtitle unreadable).
Now in 2011 I can no longer find
more info about this English version, although the
cover picture I found then, on the site of Dutch web shop
bol.com
still works:
, as does that of the Dutch version:
.
Partner programme
Soon after writing those articles, I added hyperlinks to a bol.com partner programme. This programme is no longer operative, but has been replaced by a newer programme in which since a few days I am again taking part. So I wanted to update my partner programme links.
As said, I now only find the Dutch version of the book, and according to the web shop’s info it is Edition 5, published in 2003 and 2005. The book I own is also Edition 5, but published in November 2001 (no surprise, because I bought it in December that year).
So I wonder if any updates to the book’s contents have taken place after 2001. It seems likely that weren't any, seeing the identical edition number. I found that the author, Peter Kentie now has a job with Dutch soccer club PSV. So he may not have much time for updating old books that he wrote before being in that job.
Outdated?
If the book still essentially contains the same contents as in 2001, now almost 10 years ago, it may have become outdated in some respects. (And so may my own pages, in which I refer to the book, of course.)
On the other hand, strong and brilliant ideas (like agriculture, the wheel, cars, telephone and radio, the internet) keep their value even if newer developments take place. So those who, like me, adhere to the KISS principle, may still find a lot of useful material in the 2003 or 2005 Dutch editions of Peter Kentie’s book.
Browser wars
An example of what may now be obsolete, is the explanation in the chapter on Javascript, of the Document Object Models of Netscape Navigator 2 and 4 versus that of Internet Explorer 4.
I wonder if these differences still exist or are still relevant. But I must admit I know little about it, because I restrict myself almost exclusively to HTML with CSS, and a little bit of CGI. I decided to do that because the book showed that all those dependencies made Javascript much to complicated, for my taste anyway.
These days, in 2011, I routinely test my own pages with Google Chrome 9.0, and sometimes also Firefox 3.6, Opera 9.15 (or 11.01) and Internet Explorer 8.0. I find very few discrepancies, and when I do, they are often due to errors that W3C®’s HTML validator catches.
Maybe useful
So whether Kentie’s book is still useful, I don't know. I do know that I have learnt a lot from it. I thought it would only be fair if I added these notes when still recommending a possibly obsolete, but probably still useful book.