Customer Reviews

Essential XML for Web Professionals

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

 

 

This is my fifth XML book and it is absolutely, most definitely, the best one. XML itself is pretty simple, but all of the ways it can be defined and applied can be confusing. This book makes things like DTDs, XML Schema, XSLT, XPointer, XLink and more very easy to understand. The author starts with simple, but not idiotic, examples, and builds on them throughout the book. The author is clearly both a teacher and a programmer. His goal is not to create a book of filler (like lots of others out there), but its clear he sincerely wants you to learn all about XML.

I was truly impressed by both the content and the intelligence of the presentation of this book. Even if you have a bunch of XML books already, reading this one will fill in gaps in your knowledge that you didn't even know you had.

There are certainly heavier XML books out there, but this one has dropped a lot useless filler than many of those books. I only work with XML once in a while, so I really don't need to remember exactly how, say, XPath works very often. This book contains many get-up-to-speed-quickly chapters that focus on teaching the most useful and most often used aspects of XML, as well as what clients seem to expect me to know about. For example, I was recently quizzed about SMIL and SVG by a client who I'm sure knew nothing about them, but since I had just finished this book, I was able to answer intelligently, and I believe it was a factor in my getting the job.

This book covers basic XML, XHTML, XSLT, XML Schema, DTDs, XPath, XLink, XPointer, SMIL, SVG and WDDX. It's wonderfully written and very useful. Two thumbs up!

In order to keep my precarious web development job, I decided to learn XML - everyone's been talking about it for a while. As I usually do when I need to learn a new subject, I buy about a half dozen books on the subject. This book was one of those half-dozen. Suffice it to say that I returned the other five. Seriously, it's that good. It assumes nothing about your prior knowledge, and takes you step-by-step from simple XML into DTDs, XML Schema, XSLT, XHTML, and more. The content is solid and the writing style is friendly, conversational, and intelligent.

Could have been good or even great. It starts clear, correct, and well-structured. Then about a third of the way through the book (which is really half the content because the last third is an absolete printing of the XML spec) the writing gets lazy. Comprehending the material becomes an absolute chore as all structure is lost.

The first part is the best intro to XML that I've read, but it's just an intro.

The book starts out nicely explaining everything and it gets you motivated. From chapter 3 onwards, 19 pages later, its all guess work. He gives pieces of information with no coherent example that shows how all these pieces fit together. Its left up to your imagination to guess how it all comes together. Once more, I had to go back to internet tutorials (which I have found to be way better than a lot of computer programming books). XML is not rocket science. If you can't write a descent book about it, you ought to think about quiting the writing profession (stick to writing code). This was a waste of my time and money; needless to say a waste of paper and ink too.

I'm an ASP developer with just over a year's experience. This is the first book I've read on XML, and if I have a question, it will be the first place I look.

This book has it all, except solid examples that tie it all together. I now understand how vast and capable XML is, but I haven't gained an ability to put it to any real practical use.

Items I don't agree with:
1. The book is not 500 pages ...Page 223 marks the start of Appendix A, the XML 1.0 specification. The index ends on page 345. 122 pages of reference (over 33%).
2. The book's cover states I will learn to build web applications fast. Huh? There are no sample applications, only examples of how to use the syntax being discussed.
3. The cover states that I will learn by doing, as I work on a fictional e-commerce site. Huh? There are no exercises, and there is no e-commerce site being built.
4. The cover refers to real-scenarios. Again, where are they?
5. A chapter titled, "Common Examples of XML", was really an introduction to SMIL, SVG, and WDDX. Good stuff, but not what I was expecting.

This book needs a companion to deliver all that's been promised. I still don't have a clear picture of the XML DOM, the difference between a node and an element, nor do I have an idea of where I should be using XML (instead of (or with) the technologies I'm already familiar with (i.e. ASP, ADO, and JavaScript)).

Considering how the other reviews have labeled this book #1, is there any hope? Can anyone recommend a book that's better at painting the big picture?

This book is a really good basic book to get started. I've enjoyed it.

Just skip all the others and buy this one. Really.