Customer Reviews

Beginning XML Databases (Wrox Beginning Guides)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I work with a lot of school leavers and people outside IT and often have to advise them on how to empower themselves in IT in the right way. Surely SQL and databases are one of the first topics people should understand. HTML was also high on the list. With this book, the author has combined all of them in one making it a very relevant combination for today's beginner. I will recommend this book to school leavers, financial people and people outside IT wanting to empower themselves quickly. Another great advantage of XML and databases is the platform independence. Very well done to the author for combining these topics at the entry level in such an easiliy understandable way!

I bought this years back and never opened it until about 2 years ago when I had to do some MS SQL Server 2008 work. After fruitlessly searching for good XML SQL examples everywhere, i.e., on the net, MS, etc., I was really surprised to find a very nice chapter called "SQL Server and XML" in this book.

It really helped me to understand what the heck I needed to do to extract data out of XML columns... I haven't read much else in the book, but will keep as a reference for when needed.

A book published in 2007 uses as markup plain old HTML, uses IE6 as XSLT processor... the worst book ever published about XML technologies.

I can't still believe!

(I am a developer who has been designing and implementing XML applications for more than 8 years, always searching for more background information)

In the very beginning of the introduction, Gavin states "This book is for beginners", and then "the target audience is anyone wishing to know brief details of XML and database technology" and then "Anyone involved with either XML or database technology, from the novice all the way through to the expert, would benefit from reading this book." I decided to ignore what to me seemed apparent inconsistency and went on.

In the first chapter I learn "XML can, in some respects, be considered an extensible form of HTML." I wonder if the author has ever heard of SGML or profiles. Under XML syntax I find "the optional second line contains a stylesheet reference, if a style sheet is in use." I put aside my immediate question pertaining to the validity of one-line XML documents and just wonder if the author knows that there are other means to associate style sheets with XML documents.
The subchapter makes no mention of comments and does not describe what a processing statement is or how it varies from elements. The description of nesting is difficult to understand. And I find "All elements must have a closing element." Has the author really never seen an empty tag? Then he says,
"Exceptions to this rule is the XML definitional element at the beginning of the document, declaring the version of XML in exceptions, and an optional style sheet:""

At this point I put the book on the shelf to gather dust. The combination of the incorrect verb, the mislabeling of a processing statement as an element, and the basic logic conflict between the two adjacent sentences, was just more than I wanted to tolerate.

There may be some good information deeper in the book, but if the author and his proofreaders are not more careful than this, I don't have the time to risk looking for it.