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Summary: Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
Review: This is the best stand alone book on web publishing that I have found. It serves as both a reference and a pretty good cover to cover read, which is rare. The loosely related photographs throughout and the high quality paper make it a good buy. It covers all the bases of putting up a web site including the hardware, programming, hosting, design, etc. (plus an outstanding primer on e-commerce) It provides great references for all its topics on both the web and in print. It has some small but useful tutorials on SQL and HTML which can help you at least get started. The thinly veiled contempt that Mr. Greenspun has for Microsoft and even Macintosh is somewhat off-putting for those of us not quite ready or able to embrace Unix; but he does try to point out the benefits of all major platforms, web servers and databases.He doesn't talk much of the future of web design because I don't think he believes that what defines a quality site will change much when we all have cable modems; he often mentions how most current "advances" in programming and operating systems were actually born in the 60's and 70's. Overall, the book gives a strong sense of being up-to-date,unlike most books about the web which seem dated by the time they are printed. I have yet to see a more useful resource for allowing would-be web publishers to see what they are up against.
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Summary: Very readable, down-to-earth book on Web Publishing
Review: Greenspun writes in a very direct, down-to-earth and, at times, self-critical manner. Graphics designers, MBA's, bloated corporate management and packaged Web solutions receive ruthless trashing (but: with good arguments to support the trashing). This book contains both technical information (albeit heavily biased towards AOLServer, TCL and Oracle) and clear explanations of the ideas and design choices.Note, this is not a book that will teach you fancy HTML tags, really cool SQL queries or powerplay server-side scripting. You should read it for its ideas and then seek additional documentation for implementation specifics. The book is printed on heavy, glossy paper and is stuffed with Greenspun's photographs (which may be appreciated much more at www.photo.net, a website he started several years ago). The quality of the book's binding is, sadly, quite insufficient. Even with proper care, several pages have fallen out within a few months. In short: I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about (starting in) Web design and, most importantly, online communities.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Book
Review: Philip Greenspun is the creator of photo.net and a very entertaining author as well. This a great book for beginners to get an overview of web publishing, online communities, and databases. Some of the specifics of the book are a little dated but the concepts are not. I often refer back to this book for ideas and inspiration. The online version of this book is free, but the print edition has great glossy pages and is packed with gratuitous, full-color pictures from Philip's image library.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Superb
Review: I received this book as a birthday gift about six months ago and I read it from cover-to-cover within 2 days. Even though the book is 600 pages long, I enjoyed each and every word. Philip Greenspun's wry comments, ironic satire and intelligent prose make for an enjoyable, technical read. This book is the best that I have come across for designing database-backed websites. Unlike the numerous other books on the topic, this one doesn't dispense with advertising or commerical gimmicks. Dr. Greenspun is strikingly honest and speaks from personal experience -- he has designed and created over 200 database backed websites in his professional career. This book is invaluable for anyone who is considering construction of a true web service -- in today's world, the power and versatility that a database lends is necessary for a web site's sucess. Overall, this book is superb and covers the subject definitively. This is not a book on designing user interfaces to database-backed websites. It focuses on constructing a versatile, reliable and expandable backend that can run your site for many years. As for web interface design, I like Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Nielsen. I find myself using these two books in combination to create a nice 1-2 punch :)
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Summary: Collected (but a bit jumbled) wisdom of a web pundit
Review: This book covers such a wide range of subjects - HTML, web design, SQL, server configuration, e-commerce, accepting credit cards, scalability, futurology, search engines, choosing a database, the nature of buying software, system admin and loads more, all in great depth - that it's almost impossible to characterize the contents. It's also packed full of beautiful, but completely unrelated, photographs; all taken by the author! Philip Greenspun runs a successful web consultancy with several very busy sites, and seems to have tried to distill all that he has learned into one book. A lot of what he says is very wise, and although I disagree with some of his technology choices, he has thought everything through in great detail. There are quite a few sections which I will re-read and study for my own projects, but many others I will never bother with again. The book's main drawback is its size, which makes it hard to cherry-pick just the bits you need. If you are looking for ways to use the latest technology to make a web site look cool, this is not the book for you. If you are building or running a site or business with lots of users, and you want to keep them and avoid going crazy in the process, you need this book. And the photos really are good.
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Summary: Still the book to recommend
Review: It's interesting how a lot of readers complain about the book being all about Phil's ego and Arsdigita,(the company he created that is now part of redhat). It seems those people didn't understand much of the book or found the subject disappointingly tougher than they thought... Yes, web publishing requires more intelligence and thoughfullness some would like to believe. And this book makes you realise that, whether 1998 or 2002.
Most web sites that are data driven these days still use the same principles explained in this book. Most don't use the ACS but the whole idea behind the ACS is one that comes from a sincere desire to facilitate the creation of dynamic (data driven) web sites.
One can tell Greenspun is more than a technologist, but a humanist as well. This would explain the appearance of the book some like to critisize. Certainly Greenspun ego is present, but what can you expect from someone who's got a vast array of knowledge and wisdom to share. Definitely a book any intelligent person will love.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what it takes to create web services. Also, this book is the perfect reference for teaching a class on website development, in a manner that gives students a broad perspective before they delve into the inevitable geek stuff: web application programming, data models, and SQL queries. I've used this book at work to educate some of my cooworkers who were programmers or designers, and to give clients instructive lectures on the subject.
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Summary: Not bad, but woefully outdated
Review: Let's face it folks, this book was already outdated when it came out in 1999 and today it's even worse. The book *does* provide a good high-level discussion of how this stuff works (like you'd expect from an MIT prof), highly recommended for the utter novice. For everyone else, I'd pass until we see an updated version with less Microsoft bashing and even less demagoguery. But if you want a good history lesson, go for it!
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Summary: Still one of the best books on database backed websites
Review: I first read this book online back several years ago and the knowledge I gained helped me immensely in my professional career in enterprise database sites. While Philip has strong opinions, he is often right on the mark in my experience and he puts his money where his mouth is by publishing his material online for free. His ACS toolkit spun off into the OpenACS toolkit which uses the free open source PostgreSQL database as well as Oracle and is use by many organizations. The extensive documentation and free open source code makes it easy to implement the kind of sites this book talks about. Given the poor quality of many websites in 2002, full of "cool" features which rarely work, Philips insite into the nature of website development still hold true. I highly recommend this book and if you don't want to pay for it, try his online version ...and then pick up the hardcopy for the coffeetable!
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Summary: An opinionated book, and great fun
Review: I came across a reference to this book while searching on the Internet for information on web design. I was looking for help with HTML. The link took me to the online version of the book and before I knew what was happening, I was so engrossed in the first chapter, I hadn't even asked myself what all this had to do with web-design! I have no experience with computer programming, little with databases, and only a little "Welcome to my Homepage"-type experience with design. But I was hooked. I have since bought and read the hardcopy version, and recommended it to anyone who will listen. Those who won't, I've told them about the "photo.net" site where they can find great photos. Yes, Greenspun is opinionated - I laughed. Yes, he refers frequently to his own company "arsdigita". Yes, he blows his own trumpet. But he sticks to his anti-commercial principles: software and computer development would progress faster and benefit more people if people were less concerned with being proprietary. As an example, he has put his book, and many of the services he mentions, on the Internet for free. I liked his championship of the user, and of networked computers. Much of what he said made sense to me and helped me think more carefully about my own websites. People who say he is in it just for the money can hardly have read the whole book. As others have noted, this is not a "How-to" book on HTML, computer programming, or even web-design. It is a broad look at the place websites have, and could have, in our technological society, and puts some difficult yet stimulating questions before the web-designer. A book written with humanity, passion, and courage.
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Summary: Stop what you are doing, and buy this book!
Review: Do you remember the first time you used google? Didn't you want to run around and tell everyone about it, yet at the same time want to keep the secret of this gem to yourself? That's the way I feel about this book. The author elegantly articulates the fundamental concepts of database-backed web development, in a way that both entertains and informs. It is the only programming book I've ever read that is a page-turner. The most valuable part of the book for me was the author's candid examples of the mistakes he has made along the way, the solutions created to prevent reoccurrence, and most importantly the thought process used to derive the solution. If you are serious about developing your own website, simply avoiding the pitfalls described in this book will save you a thousand times the cost of the book.
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