From time to time I find enough time to read technical books. When I heard that a book for HTML5 Boilerplate, my favorite HTML framework I've been using for years now, is coming I just had to read it.

First, the book starts with the basics of the HTML5 Boilerplate. It explains the components of it, like clearfix, normalize.css, modernizr, etc. Most of you won't need to read that but it adds to why HTML5 Boilerplate has all these components in it.

I am missing another project listed in the directory where you can download builds. If you work with a build tool (or even are used to grunt.js) you should also consider using @drublic's init project. This is only for advanced users but still it could have been in the book ;)

After reading all the basics in Chapter 1 you start over in the next chapter creating a project with HTML5 Boilerplate. This also starts using git, so if you're not familiar with git you learn it as well here. Additional explanation is taken on loading jQuery via CDN, third party libraries, icons, protocol relative URLs, and all the little things that are implemented in H5BP but are barely noticed (or understood) by developers.

Chapter 3 tells you about proper HTML5 markup and how to use the predefined CSS classes in your own project. This is a very important part of the book as I know that most people using H5BP don't understand or even know about these predefined helper classes that make your life easier.

Then follows a chapter about how to deal with jQuery and plugins as well as how to use Modernizr tests to add elements or properties safely. The book then explains how you can see the results of these tests in your browser using developer tools.

If you ever wondered what this .htaccess file does, the next chapter will tell you. All the cool tricks done in the project are explained and let you understand more of servers, clients and performance issues.

Now, you basically know about all the cool things you can do with HTML5Boilerplate but unfortunately one often has to deal with older browsers, too. H5BP has several helpers built in for old IE and you will learn how to use them and what you have to take care of if you build a modern responsive website. As SASS as a CSS preprocessor language becomes more and more popular, there is a section how you can convert your styles from CSS to SASS. But we're not finished yet, there are tons of things that are not build into HTML5Boilerplate by default but can speed up your site, increase SEO level or other things. This book brims over with cool tricks!

Now you might be finished with your cool new project but still have to deploy it. This can be automated with build scripts. Divya Manian, the author of the book, tells you how to deal with a build tool to automate your deployment process and let these tools do all the concatenation, compression stuff you won't do manually. Now if you've read all that, you will be an expert of frontend development. No, basically I can say, if you read it and can develop under these guidelines as well as understand what you do, you are a rock solid developer.

Go further? Yes, there is another chapter telling you more cool stuff you might rarely use but still it shows you what is possible.

So what do I think?

You might already read out of context that I think this is a good book. Surely much of the content can be found in the github wiki or docs but it is not the same to read the book or wiki. While the wiki is good to lookup one specific thing you don't understand, the book is telling you the whole story from beginning to the end. And even me, using the HTML5Boilerplate since many years, found some interesting things in the book I didn't know of.

So if you want to buy it, I recommend buying "HTML5Boilerplate Development" from packtpub.