If there wasn't already an omnibus Bible series, the publisher might have had to call this one CGI and Everything Else about the Web. Although more information is usually better than less, this book incorporates so much extra material--HTML, SGML, Vannevar Bush, multimedia, hypertext theory, site hosting, you name it--that the CGI information almost gets lost. This book would be half its present size and significantly handier if the non-CGI stuff were removed.
The CGI coverage in CGI Bible is fair, with good explanations of all the methods and environment variables, as well as some worthwhile CGI theory and troubleshooting material. However, the how-to-program chapters take the form of tired recitations about commenting and reusability and the important CGI libraries get only cursory attention. The brightest part of this package is the CD-ROM, which contains some useful CGI programs.
Book Description
Only some Web browsers support Java and JavaScript, only some VBScript -- and few people upgrade to new releases fast enough to suit the creativity of Web developers. Luckily, there's CGI (Common Gateway Interface), which allows fancy functionality, processing, and interactivity to take place on a Web server, so it doesn't much matter whether it's Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 2 or version 4 on the client side.
If you've programmed in other languages, you'll find CGI scripting pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it. If you've never programmed before, CGI is a good place to start. In either case, you'll find CGI Bible an indispensable resource and guide as you begin using CGI scripting to add valuable functionality to your Web pages.
CGI Bible provides concise, authoritative solutions to...
Creating interactive forms for exchanging information with users Using CGI to connect to SQL (Standard Query Language) databases Handling complex user interactions with clickable image maps and search engines Securing customer communications using the latest security standards Adding sound and video clips and building intelligent user agents Four popular authors have combined efforts to give you the ultimate start-to-finish tour of CGI programming in this update of the best-selling Foundations of WWW Programming with HTML and CGI. You could ask for no more CGI-savvy authors than Ed Tittel, Mark Gaither, Sebastian Hassinger, and Mike Erwin.
Plus, on the bonus CD-ROM you get with CGI Bible, you'll find...
Complete URL listings from the book Ready-to-use source code And excellent HTML and CGI developer utilities.
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