Book Review: The Modern Web by Peter Gasston; No Starch Press

I recently had the opportunity to read the book, "The Modern Web" by Peter Gasston. Here is my review."The Modern Web" is a technical introduction and fairly crisp deep dive into the latest multi-device web development technologies. The author focuses on the core technologies and highlights how it can be different between devices. He offers helpful suggestions and guidance towards how to ensure the content is consistent across multiple platforms and devices.I am relatively new to web development technologies. I wrote basic HTML long long ago and some CSS when I redesigned my website. Nothing much beyond that. I approached this book with some interest and caution. Interest because it promised a fairly quick (264 pages including quite a bit of sample code) introduction on the topics. Caution because its blurb tossed out a whole bunch of new terminology I had been hearing about but never knew much beyond that.  I have made my way through the book and I am happy to say I am better off after.The author offers a brief introduction to the current state of web technologies and proliferation of devices and jumps into the problem at hand. The first section is about html5 and what it promises over and beyond the original html. The next two chapters offers a perspective on CSS as it has evolved for different screens. It also introduces new CSS frameworks and layouts. The author's predisposition for code samples is evident from the start. Each chapter is rich in code snippets and tags as required. The appendix for each chapter offers helpful links and resources if the reader wants to expand on a specific topic introduced in the chapter. The following chapter is all about the new Javascript. I call it new because it is significantly different from the one a few years ago. The new Javascript based frameworks have made it simpler to build complex websites but without the right toolset, things can appear daunting. The author briefly talks about the most popular Javascript frameworks, most notably jQuery.Chapter 6 is all about how to handle device specific API's for things like location services, sensor based activities, and so on. Chapter 7 is dedicated to handling images and graphics- a sorely needed one at that. Appropriately sized and formatted images that adjust to varying screen sizes and resolutions are a must in today's world. This Chapter gets the reader started on that path. Chapter 8 is all about Web Forms and Chapter 9 deals with multimedia and the dizzying array of media formats and elements that populate today's websites and devices.The next chapter is for those who are interested in building web apps instead of native applications tailored to the device under consideration. This is its own big argument but for the purpose of the book, the author gives a succinct introduction to the world of Web Apps and how the developer can go about building one. The final chapter talks about the upcoming advances in all the areas discussed in the book and how certain core techniques will come handy irrespective of where things go from here.One piece of advice for anyone considering this book. The book gets pretty technical pretty quickly. This is a boon and a bane. For someone looking at a non-technical introduction to the topic and technologies, this is not the right book. It is very much for an intermediate reader with some exposure to programming-  minimal html, CSS and Javascript. With the right background, the book shines and offers great value in a small package.*This review is part of the O'Reilly Reader Reviews program. I get to choose a book of interest/relevance which I read and review. I will be doing this occasionally. I am not paid to do this. I have no commercial interest. The only benefit I get out of this is that I read and get to keep the book in consideration.