Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers [Paperback]

Alex Ceponkus (Author), Faraz Hoodbhoy (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471344028 | ISBN-13: 978-0471344025 | Publication Date: July 1, 1999

The tools and techniques you need to build applications and systems with XML.

IT professionals know that XML is well on its way to becoming the industry standard for information exchange on the World Wide Web. This book provides you with the hands-on details you need to create the next generation of Web applications. With this book/CD-ROM, two former Microsoft XML technologies team members supply you with the know-how and tools you need to harness the power of XML. Alex Ceponkus and Faraz Hoodbhoy walk you through numerous real-world examples illustrating effective techniques for using XML to enhance the data accessing and presentation capabilities of your programs.

You get an in-depth look at how to use the XML Document Object Model, the DOM, and techniques for leveraging the XML Stylesheet Language, XSL.

Learn how to:
* Build sophisticated e-commerce applications with XML.
* Use XSL with XML to facilitate data presentation.
* Radically enhance the data exchange capabilities of intranet and Web applications.
* Create customized markup languages.
* Create intelligent, searchable document structures.
* Access existing data in relational databases.
* Exploit XML in various real-world business scenarios.

On the CD-ROM you'll find:
* Source code from the book.
* Demo applications.
* Active Server scripting examples for server-side interaction.
* Updates on XML from the W3C.
* The tools and applications you need to begin writing and testing your XML applications.

Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Looking past much of the hype surrounding XML, Applied XML provides a real-world guide to the XML used in the latest browsers and server-side solutions. Approachable yet filled with useful specifics about XML standards, this book fills a valuable niche for any IS professional, including Java developers.

The notable feature here is the clarity of the authors' presentation and their real-world examples using current tools. They start off with the "big picture" about XML and its potential for allowing today's corporations to structure and deliver data over the Internet. The book then covers all the basics with a full tour of the relevant XML standards like DTDs, XML DOM, and XSL (for displaying XML data).

Because XML is still a fairly new technology, many books drift into theory. Not so with Applied XML, which centers on today's tools (like Internet Explorer 5 and a variety of XML parsers for Java). The book anchors his discussion of XML standards with real-world examples using an online shopping site powered by ASPs and Java. There is also good coverage of the XML document model, including many clear diagrams explaining the hierarchical organization of XML data. If you've been baffled by more abstract explanations of XML, this guide is as good as any for getting you started with this powerful standard. For the Java programmer, examples of using Java to parse and display XML data will also be useful.

Now that XML has moved into the mainstream, it stands ready to do real work on the Internet. Any IS professional who is considering XML for delivering corporate data can benefit from this capable and efficient tour of the advantages of XML for today's businesses. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: XML overview, Document Type Declarations (DTDs), XSL, XML and information exchange, three-tiered architectures, browser support, XML tags, attributes, comments, namespaces, DOM reference, tree navigation, trees and notes, Internet Explorer 5 and data islands, JavaScript and VBScript, Java XML parsers, server-side XML: Active Server Pages (ASPs) and servlets, XML data types, XML and Visual Basic, and XML queries.

Review

"...a thoroughgoing instructional text" (Database & Network Journal, Vol 30/5 2000)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471344028
• ISBN-13: 978-0471344025
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > Database Design

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A dissapointing and badly written book, January 5, 2000

By 

Jez Wain (Grenoble, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers (Paperback)

A very badly written book, with lots of superflous and often self-serving text and a truly terrible writing style. Finding the useful information amongst all the noise is difficult - the book could easily be reduced to half the number of pages.

Despite claims to the contrary, the authors are very biased towards Microsoft. Every chapter contains the phrase "MS IE5 is the only browser to support XML" several times.

The Simple API for XML (SAX) an event driven API which is particularly important for handling large and very large documents, is relegated to a two line entry in the glossary of this 450 page book - this surely has nothing to do with the fact that Microsoft doesn't support SAX.

Finally, in the section on XSL the book describes the deprecated order-by tag, which is available in IE5, which is OK, but then does not even describe the replacement "sort" tag.

The examples are trivial, and not at all suited to an industrial environment. The authors show their limited understanding of the requirements of industrial or business critical applications. The examples concentrate mainly on the client (more Microsoftery), whereas it is probable that most XML manipulation will occur on the server.

Better books are available and I regret spending my money on this one.

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunate Purchase, January 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers (Paperback)

It is surprising to me that the publishers would allow a book with this many blatent errors on the shelf. The typos alone are enough to detract from the message. The number of technical errors is unforgivable. I also wonder which *reader* took the time to write the author's autobiography as a review. Especially when the book was not yet available. I also think it is interesting that the only glowing reviews seem to have the same grammatical mistakes evident in the text...Don't waste your money.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Above average, but full of technical errors and typos, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers (Paperback)

The book is better than average, when compared with other XML books. Unfortunately it is full of technical errors and typos. The most glaring errors are in the DOM section. For example, on page 140 the authors list different types of nodes, and claim that NodeList and NamedNodeMap are nodes. This is not correct, as can be seen from the definitions of the NodeList and NamedNodeMap interfaces on page 444 (Java DOM Binding, Appendix B). NodeList and NamedNodeMap do not extend Node, and therefore do not offer the same behavior (methods) as offered by, for example, an Element which is a Node. The example on page 123 is not a valid XML document, since the parameter entities are only declared, but not referenced in the internal DTD subset. Semicolons are missing in all the parameter entity references on page 122. On page 82, when entities are first encountered in the book, they are defined as, units of text. This is misleading since entities can also be files with binary data (unparsed entities). There are many other similar errors and typos. The DOMifier utility included with the book is very useful for beginners. The XML parser, at least in the version included with the book, is not very useful, since it gives strange error messages even when reading perfectly good (but slightly complex) DTD files. A more robust and validating version would be extremely useful.