The very best HTML book for training

There's so many... which one to choose

[neophyte]

Hello All -

I've got a little tiny coding shop (ah, just me at the moment) in southeast asia. Business is beginning to grow, however, and I need to put on a person or two to help. I've met two potential candidates that I'd like to hire but one does old-school HTML (completely table-based, no doc-type, plenty of errors and warnings) and the other - while very enthusiastic - doesn't know a thing about html.

So, I need to train them. I've looked at W3 Schools and other on-line training sites, but the internet around here is slow and goes down frequently, so what I'd like to do is get them a book with pleanty of exercises to train from.

The book I'm looking for will need to be easy to follow (not too much jargon) yet comprehensive with ideally lots and lots of hands-on exercise material as I think most of the candidates around here would benefit more from hands-on experience via real-world exercises, rather than page after page of background/lecture-type of material.

There's lots and lots of "learn HTML" books, but which ones would the good folks here recommend?

Neophyte

[vincevincevince]

I've got a little tiny coding shop in southeast asia. Best time to hire here is via jobs boards and newspapers around the time that university students are finishing and looking for work. I've found candidates with basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript are available without too much searching; then it's just a case of getting them up to speed about best practice.

[tedster]

To start someone from scratch, I like Sams Teach Yourself HTML and CSS in 24 Hours. You're not going to get best practices there, but you will get up to speed on basic mark-up pretty fast. I'm basing my comments on an older edition here, the newest may be even better.

[ronin]

Another vote for SAMS, here.

[neophyte]

Thank you all for your replies -

Was about to whip out the credit card to get SAMS on Amazon (eight customer reviews: 3 and 5 stars) when I came across Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (163 customer reviews: 4 and 5 stars)

No doubt both books cover the same territory - just (apparently) in a different fashion - but 25 bucks is 25 bucks and I'd like to try to select the better of the two.

Hate to belabor my initial question, but has anyone had any exposure/experience with the Head First title vs Sams?

Neophyte

[netchicken1]

Just as an aside, are your staff that good and motivated that you have to go back to first principles to get them to build websites?

Is there no other people around you with a good grasp of html you could hire? Certinaly if you advertised on the net you would be swamped in applicants.

It really seems that you are setting yourself up for lots of work akin to teaching someone to speak a foreign langauge when you want them to write a book in that language.

I think you should tell your staff "I want this site with these characteristics" and THEY have to work out how to write good code.

Otherwise all this hand holding just makes more work for yourself, where is THEIR self motivation?

What happens when you get to CSS? Will you buy them another book? How about MYSQL and PHP?

Are you running a charity or a business?