Designing XML Internet Applications [Paperback]

Michael Leventhal (Author), David Lewis (Author), Matthew Fuchs (Author)

Book Description

Series: Charles F. Goldfarb Series on Open Information Management | Publication Date: January 15, 1998

With XML, true Web-based information management has arrived. This is a complete guide to building XML Internet applications that can automate and simplify virtually every form of electronic communication. Learn why your organization needs XML -- and how it combines SGML's legendary power with the simplicity and accessibility of the best Web-based applications. Walk step-by-step through the fundamentals of XML usage and design: not just basic syntax, but the real-world processes you must understand to achieve XML's full benefits. Discover specific approaches for building a robust, effective XML-based intranet communications infrastructure -- techniques you won't find anywhere else. Build six full-scale, practical XML applications, including bulletin boards, order entry systems, document conversion tools and more. All the Java, C++, C and perl source code you need is included on CD-ROM.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Leventhal's book is for programmers who need to use Perl or Java to do XML application development for databases, bulletin boards, E-mail, parsing, and web agents. There is a lot of good information, but this is not easy reading.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

Get results with XML!

With XML, true Web-based information management has arrived. Designing XML Internet Applications is the first complete guide to building XML Internet applications that can automate and simplify virtually every form of electronic communication.

Learn why your organization needs XML-and how it combines SGML's legendary power with the simplicity and accessibility of the best Web-based applications. Walk step-by-step through the fundamentals of XML usage and design: not just basic syntax, but the real-world processes you must understand to achieve XML's full benefits.

Discover specific approaches for building a robust, effective XML-based intranet communications infrastructure-techniques you won't find anywhere else. Build six full-scale, practical XML applications, including bulletin boards, order entry systems, document conversion tools and more. All the Java, C++, C and perl source code you need is included on CD-ROM along with XML parsing tools and Sun Microsystem's Java Development Kit (JDK). There's no better way to jumpstart your own XML application development!

Make no mistake, XML is revolutionary. Don't let the revolution happen without you. Lead it, with Designing XML Internet Applications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (January 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136168221
• ISBN-13: 978-0136168225
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,345,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm not impressed., November 16, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Huntsville, Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Designing XML Internet Applications (Paperback)

I was looking for a clean and concise approach to XML. Instead I got the impression that this book was just an excuse for the author to squeeze in as much minutia on SGML as he thought he could get away with.

It does give good background on XML along with a mind numbing amount of hype.

Look elsewhere for a good introduction to using XML.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars weighty but not effective, May 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Designing XML Internet Applications (Paperback)

This book is a massive (42oz!) tome - nearly 600 large print, wide margin pages with lengthy, poorly typeset code examples. Chapter 7 devotes forty pages to examples of sgrep usage, many of which only show how *not* to use sgrep in an XML application. Chapter 10 has dozens of pages of poorly commented, badly indented java code for a pre-standard DOM implementation. Lengthy runs of approximate code do not enlighten; the space would be better used as an appendix listing the XML spec itself, for example.

The introductions to XML parsing were at least informative; the worked examples are tantalizing, but naggingly incomplete; there is the impression that XML should have more significant than the examples express. The first few chapters do a fair job of expressing the idea that XML can do all the cool things SGML can, but in a more practical manner; however, the practical examples in chapter 3 are very restricted, and aren't very convincing about the broad applicability of XML. They certainly don't do a good job of supporting the enthusiasm of the earlier chapters.

Chapter 5 is probably the bright light; in only 20 pages, it covers a small example in a convincing and thorough way. Chapter 6 has similar potential - but wanders off into examples of stylesheets without really indicating why instead of what. Finally, Chapter 11 is either truncated or ill-conceived - it begins with a highly abstract treatment of user interface as "negotiation", then stumbles a dozen pages later into an ill-fitting and poorly expanded "shopping cart" example. It never becomes clear if the "negotiation agents" and "negotiation planners" are merely thought experiments in how XML could be made to fit, or actual tools.

The CDROM appears to be mostly be versions of tools already on the net; the book lacks a table of contents for the CD, however, only intermittent references to specific tools.

In sum, I expected more. In particular, I expect a book about *designing* applications to have more of a design focus, and more focussed, better explicated examples.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Spacefiller without any real focus, June 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Designing XML Internet Applications (Paperback)

This is obviously a book where the authors commited themselves to writing a certain number of pages and then, half-way into the work they realized that didn't have enought material to cover it. The totally useless 100-page poorly-commented pre-release Java source code for a DOM-implementation in chapter 10 is a particularily good example of this.

Another horrible chapter is chapter 11, which contains an explataion of user interface interaction that is so overly abstract but still so extremely stupid that I've used that particular chapter as an example of how a really useless book should be written.

Also, early in the book the author explains that the book is amed towards rpogrammers. It's interesting to see that they hardly ever back their examples up with and source code at all.

In short. Don't buy this book.