Customer Reviews

XML Development with Java 2 (Sams White Books)

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

 

 

I don't like this book for following reasons:

- The source code can't be used on a project due to bugs and poor quality.

- The author does not know what Java Beans are but goes on to provide a buggy utility class.

- About 30% of the book is dedicated to non XML related concepts such as EJBs and Servelts etc.,

- Does not explain the concepts of DOM L1/L2 in detail.

- Does not describe JAXP in sufficient detail.

There are few more reasons, but I will stop here due to lack of time...

The landscape of Java & XML is very dynamic. There are lots of good books on XML but there are no good ones that provide good conent in the context of Java and JAXP. There is no point in buying this book unless company is paying for it.

XML Development with Java 2 is not quite as solid a work as it might appear from first glance. The examples, though thorough in their coverage, are incomplete in several respects. To explain: one of the first code samples in section 2.17, is not included on the CD Rom source (how many others are missing?); the book fails to mention which of several third party Java libraries are needed to build the sample applications, and much of the required software is not on the CD Rom so once you identify the libraries you must find, download, and install each one from the internet; the Java 2 compiler complains of deprecated apis; compiling chapter 8 sample code results in complaints that classes cannot be found - listing 8.6 calls for sams.chp7.XMLUtil, which doesn't exist.

Having complained to the technical support link at the back of the book, the only response was that they appreciated the comments and would consider what would need to be done for the next edition of the book.

Overall, I am impressed with the content but am non-plussed by the level of quality and technical support. If you want a book that you don't have to second guess, this book may not be for you.

Very good book but there's an problem. I would give it 5 stars but this problem ticks me off......

The BEA Weblogic evaluation software is expired. I find it amazing that BEA and Sams publishing would ship an evaluation copy that is expired before the book is bought. It should timebomb AFTER installation. I've contacted SAMS and they said "I am afraid you are out of luck. If you would like to purchase a full version please visit http://www.beasys.com/products/servers_application.shtml"

How's that for a marketing scheme ? Yes you can get a eval copy from their web site, but I don't have the fast bandwidth to do a download of that size. This book was only published 2 months ago and the evaluation copy has expired. I bet it was expired before they even shipped the book.

In my 17 years of buying and reading software development books, this work rates among the best I've ever seen: its clearly written, easy to read, packed with all sorts of helpful context and detail, and conveys the enthusiasm the authors have for their subject matter. (Also the size is reasonable and its not padded with whitespace and screen-shot filler so common these days...)

In my 17 years of buying and reading software development books, this work rates among the best I've ever seen: its clearly written, easy to read, packed with all sorts of helpful context and detail, and conveys the author's enthusiasm for the subject matter.

This book is surely helpful for programmers have understood XML and Java(Servlet or EJB) . But it is imcomplete to explain the relationship Java and XML. So I only use this book as "Examples for XML and Java".

If you are a Java programmer who needs to learn how to manage data from XML sources, this book goes a long way towards providing not only the foundation, but also some of the intricacies, such as how the XML data model gets along with Swing... Its a good, solid, work

In my 17 years of buying and reading software development books, this work rates among the best I've ever seen: its clearly written, easy to read, packed with all sorts of helpful context and detail, and conveys the author's enthusiasm for the subject matter.