I have the 3rd edition and use it most everyday in my job. I figured it would be a bit outdated so I bought this latest version. The new version is essentially the exact same as the old version and I feel like I wasted my money. It's also missing the handy quick reference the older version had. However, if you don't have an earlier version, I would definitely recommend it. It's indispensable.

I wanted a complete reference & guide to html/xhtml and that's what I got. I didn't want to be ignorant about any features. I didn't want to be left in the dark about anything. This book has all the info I wanted, and much more. In fact in a way it has too much info. It has info about tags, attributes, and other features that are obsolete, deprecated, or not supported by any browsers. You can skip over those rather than slogging your way through every word in the book. Maybe it's just me, but one downside to this book for me is that the writing style tends to be convoluted, verbose, and somewhat boring. I had some difficulty staying focused and concentrating on this book. But since it fulfilled the reason I got this book, I still give it 5 stars. So if you're looking for a complete book, don't worry, it's complete.

If you do web development, you should have one solid HTML/XHTML reference guide on your bookshelf. This one ranks up there... HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide (6th Edition) by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy. Although the CSS and XML sections are a little light, the core HTML and XHTML information is all you could ask for.

Contents: HTML, XHTML, and the World Wide Web; Quick Start; Anatomy of an HTML Document; Text Basics; Rules, Images, and Multimedia; Links and Webs; Formatted Lists; Cascading Style Sheets; Forms; Tables; Frames; Executable Content; Dynamic Documents; Mobile Devices; XML; XHTML; Tips, Tricks, and Hacks; HTML Grammar; HTML/XHTML Tag Quick Reference; Cascading Style Sheet Properties Quick Reference; The HTML 4.01 DTD; The XHTML 1.0 DTD; Character Entities; Color Names and Values; Netscape Layout Extensions; Index

This book does a good job in blending a bit of tutorial information with a lot of reference material. All the HTML tags that exist are documented, along with whether it's an extension/deprecated/archaic, what type of browser support is involved in using the tag, and all the attributes and locations where it can be used. I found that I was catching some tags and nuances that I had overlooked in the past, even after having done web coding for many, many years. The book also has material on Cascading Style Sheets and XML, but I found that less useful than the HTML contents. The basics of those two technologies are covered, but not at the level I'd want in a definitive guide. While I think that you can't ignore CSS in an HTML book any more, I just wouldn't recommend this as an "all-in-one" book to cover both. But other than that, this is a book that I'll want to keep around for those strange times when my HTML tags just aren't working like they're supposed to...

Calling this book "The Definitive Guide" is not a misnomer, for that's what it is. I guess you could learn HTML and XHTML from scratch with this book, but I wouldn't advise it. (If you are just beginning you should check out O'Reilly's "Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML.") Weighing in at over 600 pages means that if it ain't described in here you probably shouldn't be doin' it! And if it is described in here, it's described clearly and accurately.

When I opened this book I was a bit surprised, it wasn't quite what I expected. I have gotten use to O'Reilly books having lots of examples and codes snippets. And the first thing I noticed about this book was that it contains a lot more words than code. That said, this is my first "Definitive Guide" O'Reilly book, so this format may be the norm, I don't know.

This book does a thorough job of going over each of the HTML/XHTML tags and their attributes one at a time. The authors devote a couple of paragraphs to each tag describing its function and outlining its future in HTML/XHTML and once and awhile they throw in a line or two of code.

While the authors do devote most of the book to HTML / XHTML they take a brief look at cascading style sheets, executable content such as JavaScript, dynamic content, mobile devices and XML. While I would expect to find such information in a book like this, I would like to note that readers shouldn't expect to get more than a preface or introduction into those topics from this book. The book concludes by discussing XHTML and providing the reader with some useful tips.

Like many books the jewel is found at the end. This book includes eight appendices some of which I found quite interesting and useful. The appendices are as follows: A: HTML Grammar; B: HTML/XHTML Tag Quick Reference; C: Cascading Style Sheet Properties Quick Reference; D: The HTML 4.01 DTD; E: The XHTML 1.0 DTD; F: Character Entities; G: Color Names and Values; H: Netscape Layout Extensions. The DTD sections I found very interesting, it was neat to see the definition side of HTML & XHTML. And of course the quick references are always useful and usually the section of the book I turn to when I pull it off the shelf.

CONCLUSION
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Like I mentioned at the beginning, I was surprised by the format of the book, however I do think it is a good resource for HTML/XHTML. While it is "The Definitive Guide" covering all of the markup tags and attributes it is definitely not a Cookbook or Nutshell book. I would recommend this book to those looking for a reference that is detailed and in a dictionary type format. If you are looking for lots of examples and recipes you will want to look at other books in the O'Reilly library. I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars because I think it is a good reference, but in my opinion I didn't find the format very appealing.