Customer Reviews

Designing XML Internet Applications

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

It's a pretty decent indication of the potential of the XML document/messaging structure, but lacks significant insight into designing any type of formal business application.

Most of the book relies heavly on perl scripts for message processing. I wish some attention was directed at VB/ASP or CGI for message processing.

With few XML books on the market, I would recommend this book, as it provides a good insight of the potential of XML.

This is an actual excerpt from page 544: "Similarly, an output specification language may be associated with a recurring negotiation problem (or class of negotiation problems) as a way of describing that only agreements allowed by this language may be considered valid output for any specific problem instance belonging to the recurring negotiation problem."

This was a bad book when it was published almost 6 years ago. Now it is bad and out of date.

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.

Designing XML Internet Applications is a worthwhile aquisition, providing a great introduction to XML within a read world environment, yet within a historical context, which I found quite fascinating.

It's chapters are humorous and informative when read through in full, and yet, I'm usually using it to find quick syntax info when I need it.

Its index in the back could be better, but luckily the book itself is structured very well and it has an awesome Table of Contents, which I found myself using like an index (which I didn't mind, once I got used to it).

I have not had a chance to really check out the CD -- but I have been literally carrying this book around with me ever since I bought it and I have found it quite useful.