XML offers Web developers an unprecedented opportunity to add meaning and flexibility to their sites. If you want to get results with XML fast, Just XML, Second Edition is the book to start with. This complete XML practitioner's guide has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest technologies and standards, in the context of building a real-world sample application -- the highly-praised online movie guide that helped the make the First Edition a best-seller! Throughout the book, concrete examples illuminate every key aspect of XML development. Once you thoroughly understand what can be achieved with XML, you'll walk step-by-step through the development of a comprehensive DTD that leverages XML's full power. You'll master all the fundamentals of creating and maintaining customizable XML applications, including XLinks, XPointers, and XPath; the Extensible Style Language Transformations (XSLT); XML-compatible Cascading Style Sheets, and more. Along the way, you'll learn all the theory you need -- but most important, you'll be using XMLhands-on from the very beginning. For all Web developers, HTML and SGML users who want to leverage the power of XML.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Just XML isn't a book that's meant for die-hard programmers who are hell-bent on using XML--it's a book that explains the whys and wherefores of XML's design, and what one might use it for. Then, again, if you're just starting to learn XML, you're gonna need this, anyway.
Why? Because learning XML is like someone coming along and giving you a big manual on how to build a highway. They'd tell you how wide the roads should be, where the signs need to go, what color the lines down the middle have to be. But, eventually, you'd ask someone, "Say, what does this sign mean, anyway?", and your boss would tell you that he doesn't really know. "It all depends on how the driver interprets the sign," he'd say. "There really aren't any people with cars that can drive on this road yet, so we're pretty sure this sign here's gonna mean "Stop"--but that really depends on who winds up driving the car."
This is because there really aren't a lot of browsers that interpret XML--even for those that do, there are vast differences. If you've got a concrete set of tasks that you want XML to accomplish, and that you know HTML and company can't do, you've got solid, understandable examples with which to work. But, if you don't, you could be up the creek.
And this presents a lot of challenges for the XML book writer--how the heck do you explain a technology that, in many ways, isn't quite done yet?
Enter Just XML.
Unlike most programming-guide authors, John Simpson is extremely chatty and spends a lot of his time walking you through the concepts behind XML. Using a fictional B-movie database as an example of XML programming, Simpson walks you through the vagaries of XML with good, clean writing. He has a very good ear for solid metaphors, and he's also extremely good at anticipating the questions that a novice might have. His conversational tone even extends to discussing where XML's specifications fall through; to lighten things up, he even gives numerous plot summaries and reviews of B-movies.
But the book has some fairly annoying flaws. For one thing, the organization's a little backward--the code for the movie database is at the back of the book, instead of up front, and Simpson sometimes spends more time explaining why things work than what they're supposed to be doing. If you're not sure why you'd want to use a particular XML feature at this point in the document, you might get baffled. And the very informal nature of this book is sure to annoy serious programmers who just want the facts.
But, when it comes down to it, the XSLT chapter is golden--the explanations are as good as they're going to get for a kind of vague topic--and, frankly, I'd recommend it to anybody who needs an idea of what XML is for and what it can do. But, once you get that down, you'll probably need another set of XML tutorials to nail down your XML syntax knowledge. Recommended. --William Steinmetz
From Library Journal
This is such a beginner's book that webmaster Simpson (coauthor of HTML for Fun and Profit) doesn't even expect the reader to understand HTML, although he acknowledges that a familiarity with HTML will obviously help in understanding XML. Simpson uses B movies as his model and slowly develops what he calls FlixML, his mark-up language, to communicate information about B movies. This is an excellent teaching model to use since most of us have seenAand probably lovedAmovies such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Simpson covers the basics, XML tools for hyperlinking, how style sheets work with XML, creating your own XML application, and where XML might be going.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very clear rundown of XML written in an unconventional way,
By
This review is from: Just Xml (Paperback)
I bought this book in July 1999 after comparing it to many others on the market and reading Amazon comments like this one. This book has many virtues and many shortcomings. John Simpson is an entertaining writer, and one gets the sense he is just as fascinated by the content of his example XML document (B films) as XML programming itself. The book explains things extraordinarily well, although from the first 75 pages one might think that Simpson is perhaps simplifying too much (after all, most of his readers probably have a good foundation already in HTML to pick up this book). The other Amazon comments by professional programmers criticize the book for not being a good reference guide, for not describing enough detail and for getting sidetracked by miscellaneous non-programming related topics. These complaints are valid to an extent, but they miss the point. This is a good book for an introduction to the basic commands and some of the advanced ones. It's to be assumed that after reading this kind of book, the reader could find additional reference material from XML Bible or the W3 website. I thought the main example used throughout the book really explained the concepts well, and I appreciate how carefully the author tried to discuss topics that might be subject to revision by future W3 recommendations. I also appreciate how the author, anticipating possible exasperation with his film digressions, boxed them in, so they could be easily skipped over in reading (heck, I might even read them later). I have two major complaints. First, it's unfortunate that the book is not connected to a supplemental website with XML updates, corrections, code and tutorials. I am reading, Joe Burns' "JavaScript Goodies,". It contains problems, exercises and answers from the book. Perhaps future editions might be encouraged to emphasized the tutorial aspect more so than the reference guide aspect. Another "complaint" is that the book is shorter than it is. Although 376 pages, the first 40 or 50 pages were overview, every chapter had its own glossary, there were several half-blank pages at ends of chapters and some of the discussions of XML development tools seem to be outdated by now. (These might be better addressed on an accompanying web page). So what you're getting in reality is 225-250 of excellent explanation. Definitely well worth the money.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Improperly named book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Just Xml (Paperback)
Writers of Perl and XML books think that they're comedians. Hint: they're not. If I want some laughs I'll watch an old episode of Seinfeld-not buy this XML book.This book's title and the author's comments suggest that you can learn XML from his book without already knowing HTML. In fact, he tells the reader to "put away the wheelbarrows full of knowledge and predispositions you may have acquired about SGML, HTML ..." (page xi). And on the following page Simpson states that "in order to understand and use XML productively" you don't have to know anything about SGML or HTML. He's correct. But if you want to learn XML from 'this book' you do have to really know them. With everything he discusses, he does so by making reference to HTML. Thus the book is totally resistant to comprehension without this prior knowledge. In fact, a more appropriate title would be "XML for those who thoroughly know HTML" Under the new premises, this book is still way below average.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too much fluff,
This review is from: Just Xml (Paperback)
I am a software developer and I like books that provide information, definitions and examples QUICKLY, in an easy to absorb format. "Just XML" seems to meander all over the place and is rife with vacuous anecdotes in attempts to illustrate relatively simple concepts. This book might be good for someone who doesn't have any background in programming or html, but for me it was just too darn slow-paced and didn't contain enough examples (in fact, the entire book contains only *one* (completely artificial) example!).Here's a quote from the preface: "...I'm not an SGML guru. In fact, before beginning this book, I knew virtually nothing at all about it." Ho can this inspire confidence in the author's abilities? Not a good choice if you are under time-constraints and must learn as much about XML in as short a time as possible.
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