Rating: 
Summary: very personal and instructive
Review: The book was very instructive and made me laugh as well, especially the strategically placed pictures. A refreshing and outside-the-box look at building web site sans the $150/hr consultants.
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Summary: Philip helps us find our way -- What's really important
Review: Philip helps us recognize what is most important in delivering value to the viewing audience. He shows us good approaches and gives excellent examples of what not to do. If that isn't enough his photography is breathtaking. This book is an excellent resource for any experience level.
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Summary: Buy it for the entertainment value alone! The rest is gravy!
Review: By far one of the most enjoyable, entertaining, and readable technical books I've come across.Greenspun's case study descriptions, especially of his bulletin board system and his solution for eliminating an unwelcome participant entitled "Microsoft helps defend against bozos" (pg 464) were worth reading for their entertainment value alone! I have quoted excerpts from his section "Why don't customers wise up?" (pg 318) to software managers, marketing types, and colleagues as the problem described transcends web publishing alone. In addition to the solid technical advice, real-world, street saavy, and personal opinions and philosophies that Greenspun offers to the reader, the book has beautiful color photographs throughout. In the preface, he describes this as an experiment to make the "world's first coffee table computer book." My vote is that this was a hugely successful experiment! Hopefully he's working on his next book even now...
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Summary: An intelligent, straight-forward, and very accessible book
Review: "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing" has been extremely useful in shaping the way I think about sites. It offers a clear and informative view of every aspect of site-building, from conception straight through construction, growth, and maintenance.
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Summary: Easy to understand and follow
Review: "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing" is wonderfully written and easy to understand and follow. The examples are simple to follow, and Philip offers good visuals on his web page. The material is comprehensive without being overwhelming. Even is one is not building a web site, but on a planning team, this book is well worth reading.
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Summary: ESSENTIAL READING -- comprehensive, well-written
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone attempting to build ANY kind of website, but it will be particularly useful to those involved in scalable, database-backed sites. The material is comprehensive and very well-written. The author clearly sees the future of the Internet, and he provides a roadmap of the fastest way to get there.
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Summary: It was both enlightening and amusing
Review: MIT has been one of the driving forces behind the advent of the Internet and Philip Greenspun has served the institution well with an insightful, down to earth, and entertaining book on the Internet both as a technology and business medium. I can't decide who it should be more required for: Techies, of which many are defficient of the knowledge attainable in the book, or business people, who are starting the dotcom companies and need to have somewhat of an understanding of the underlying technologies in order to spearhead the building of scalable sites that won't be crushed by heavy traffic.
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Summary: Required Reading (at least at my company)
Review: I began to love this book with chapter one. On pages 10-11 he explains why 95% of Websites don't attract and keep an audience. He also gives you the key to designing one (or more) that will. And that's just for starters. The rest of the book takes the reader through an enjoyable, informative journey through Philip Greenspun's, one of the world's highest paid programmers, own trials and tribulations as a web publisher/developer. I finished the book with the distinct impression that I had been saved years of learning from mistakes--from choosing overhyped middleware to forgetting that the web is still about programming, no matter what you do with it. If you use, design, develop, fund, love or hate the Web...you need this book. As an aside: my employer chose this book as the official orientation textbook for our web development team. Actually, that's one reason I decided to take the offer to join the company: it showed me that the company is on solid footing. Shouldn't yours be?
Rating:
Summary: One of the top five web books available
Review: This books gives me ideas and is fun to read. I can't think of too many other books about the web that I could say the same of. There's something for everyone here, no matter if you're a marketting sales guy or a techie. And this is probably the only book in the market that suits both of those types, too. :)
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Summary: How you can enjoy a rainy day during your holiday
Review: Well, it was a rainy day in the beautiful Italy and I started to read Philip's book. After a couple of days my wife became angry, because I hardly could stop reading. Why? Because I found nearly all the answers I always wanted to know about the web and I could leverage his expertise by rebuilding my web site. The best think that you can laugh at all the mistakes he collected and propably you also made in the past. Before starting to build your web site, I strongly recommend to read this book and think about the people behind the web.
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