howdee - FP, but i have an important question... has anyone submitted any errata for the printed book yet ? i just checked the website and it was empty - however i picked up a physical book at barnes and noble today... i tried reading it for about 20 mins and there were SO many erratas in the code-examples i was reading that i just could not purchase it...

since the ebook has apparently been available since feb and the printed version since march, i found it surprising that (in may) no errata had been listed... on some other websites for books (thinking ora) there are (i think) confirmed vs unconfirmed errata... is that possibility available here too ?

anyways - if anyone else is on here and interested in discussing this book - id like to confirm that the errata i vaguely-remember were also in the ebook... hope to hear from you, h.

hi h-

first thank you very much for your query. i am the executive editor for the book. we are working on gathering errata for the printed book and as soon as we have it, it will be posted.

Thanks again,
carol

I'm curious what kind of errors you were seeing in the code? We try very hard to ensure that the code is working and illustrates the concepts properly, so I'm surprised that you were able to spot so many errors while flipping through the book in a store.

yeah - i felt that this was an unfair characterization as i was writing it - so i spent some time (after posting) to look thru the pages that were online from the ebook... i dont have the links or details handy atm (sorry), but iirc the errata i encountered were (of course) just 'past' the pages online...

in particular, in the store, i was curious about tables... i have a very-trivial website that i put up a long time ago and tables have changed a LOT in the years since... iirc i flipped from the [[[---index---]]]toc/preface to around pg-51 (i think the e-version stopped at 47 ?)... anyways - i was reading the text and trying to parse the code-examples... actually, the book is nicely written and made me look carefully at the code to get the full gist of what was happening... i remember being very frustrated by something about h1 a/o id headers in the example... there was some parsing cut/paste problem with right-angle-brackets i think... anyways, i kept going and made it thru my self-corrections of the errata i was seeing - and tried to follow the text...

the second issue i was interested in was the lang-property... i have a friend who is sight-disabled and has a screen-reader... i have helped him several times with poorly-designed or remodelled websites... i wanted to try and make my site work correctly... i got bogged down with the repetitions that were involved... for some reason (at that point it mightve just been my understanding-of-things rather than actual errata) i was not able to parse out how to keep the table usable for a screen reader...

at this point i was flipping back-n-forth from the index and had lost the gist of the table-of-contents... a friend came and sat near me and when i hit some other (it was probably minor) errata i had to put the book down because i could not concentrate on it any more...

my acid-test for purchasing technical books is if they are (while skimming them in a store) able to answer some question that i have in mind... in this case it was about how to reconfigure old-school-tables for the new-ways... i THINK that the answers were there - in fact im sure of it, and i liked the writing style actually - but i could not bring myself to purchase the book...

in general, i am truly a nit-picker/perfectionist... i apologize if my question seemed rash - but i really do appreciate the (two ? wow) responses i got... i feel, now, that i should go back to the store and go look at it again... in particular, i went to the trouble of writing down the isbn and putting this note together - i was right on the edge of purchase... just wanted to get someones opinion of whether the errata-process was going to be helpful...

thank you for your note... if i come up with something more-detailed and/or useful, i will try to post back... sincerely, hfelton

well, under 'useful' i wanted to mention that (back on the 3rd, just after responding here) i went ahead and purchased the ebook (due to the awesome anti-drm sale happening then)... i went and looked again for tables (turned out to be around pg 151 rather than 51)... this time, while looking thru the ebook onscreen - i was not able to find the paragraph/code-examples that i had 'remembered' from sitting down at the store... gah/sigh...

of course, again, im doing this from memory (altho i could go look at the ebook on this computer now - yay) it is disturbing to me that my recollection of the printed-book and the then-recently-purchased-ebook did not match errata-wise... in fact, i thought the code-examples in the printed-book were 'grey' and in the ebook i didnt notice any coloration (again, this is just my recollection of now 2-day-old skimming)...

i just wanted to post-back that if i get back to the bookstore and am able to sit-down with my laptop and compare-notes i will re-post with better details... and at this point it, im conceding that maybe i just was not understanding the material (since it WAS new-ish to me) while sitting in the store...

there really IS (to me) a difference between the physical-act of picking up a book and trying to read it - than in reading the pixels on a computer-screen (incl. e-readers here too)... in particular, i tend to dismiss the pixels their errors quickly [if i see them] - and to notice the paper-books [and their errata] more keenly...

again, sorry to be so verbose/critical - but wanted to let yall know that i DID purchase the e-book... and, of course, if i find any errata with it - will post to the appropriate place/s... sincerely, h.

Thanks so much for your really candid and honest reply. We really appreciate it. I wondered, do you have a copy of another of our books, HTML & CSS, Design and Build Web Sites, by Jon Duckett. If not, I'd be happy to have a copy sent to you. All you need to do is email me at [email protected] with your snail mail and we'll have a copy sent right out.

There's no need to apologize for being verbose/critical. I want to hear about anything people are having problems with, so your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

after writing the note this morning, i was determined to get to the bookstore again... i grabbed my nettop, with the pdf of the e-book and found the same chair and rack-of-books that i looked at last-time... interestingly, most of the copies were apparently now sold (good for yall - i hope)... anyways, i opened the physical book and after skipping-around for a bit, managed to find the primary-errata that had thrown me...

ive submitted it (q.#130507-000156) and bookmarked-it in my pdf... it truly is minor (now having had a third-chance to think/look at it)... anyways (for future thread-readers), it was the code-example at top of pg.67... for some reason, i was worried (in the store, skimming) that there was some new/magical h2id element, rather than the usual h2 element with id attribute... silly, really, but there ya go...

i hope yall are doing well, and ill send a quick personal-note about that other book you mentioned... thank you again, h.felton...