Customer Reviews

Mastering XML with CDROM

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

"let's forgo that concern for now", "if the code seems at all confusing to you", "you'll find a more structured explanation later"

I've rarely seen these comments in a "how to" book, but similar comments seem to show up consistently in this book.

"Show it now, explain it now" is a concept I like and I've seen in many other programming books.

Much explanation is given to XML, but few code examples are given. It is hard to retain the information given without the code to reinforce the learning.

I read a lot of technical books, and this was definitely the worst for a long time !

* The presentation jumps back and forth, often using concepts before they've been explained.

* Many explanations are opaque and confusing, while others are superficial and repetitive.

* The examples given are unhelpful (e.g. discussing the effects of stylesheets and templates without showing the document being processed).

* The code samples are full of misleading typos.

* The authors do not even follow their own rules for variable naming etc.

A waste of money.

This book tries to cover a tremendous amount of territory:
* The history of document markup and XML.
* XML concepts and syntax.
* Document analysis and DTD and schema design.
* CSS
* XSL/XSLT
* An array of development tools
* A range of XML application servers
* IE channels
* RDF, P3P, WDDX, MathML, SMIL
* Case studies from D&B, Dell

That's an impressive and ambitious list.

Unfortunately, the authors are over reaching and have prepared a book that looks like it was rushed to market. It is full of typos, grammar mistakes and nonsensical examples. It is almost incoherent in some places. The coverage from chapter to chapter is extremely uneven: Chapter 22 provides 13 pages of coverage on XML and Java. If it only took 13 pages to teach it to you, you probably wouldn't need the book to learn it.

Even as a dedicated reader with eight years' experience in publishing and content management, I found these shortcomings extremely frustrating and confusing.

If you need a survey book that covers a lot of stuff about XML without really trying to teach you the language and how to work with it, this book might be okay. For example, a business manager who has heard about XML or is contributing to the decision to use the technology might get some mileage out of the Dell or D&B case study. A curious home user just trying to get their feet wet might also appreciate the book not giving too much technical detail.

But if you're in technology or really need to learn how to use XML, Mastering XML is not a good choice. Its shallow coverage of the language's fundamentals and the hardcore technology for using it will disappoint.

(...)

This book is useless, I recommend Sybex to review this unorganized book again. Not suitable for beginners at all.

I found myself trapped with verbal explanations that keeps saying "you don't have to understand it now, more of it will be in the next section". This kind of stuff really discourage readers. This book will only prove that when you buy it you will "waste your money and your time".

Mastering XML is not very good as a reference guide. However, if you have patience and read each chapter you will defintely gain some good XML knowledge.

This being the first XML book I have seriously read, I cannot give a comparitive grade. But, if you have no clue what XML or DTD's are, or how to write them, I would not discourage you from reading this book.

Had there been zero star in the selection, I would have given to it. I bought this book just because it was of Mastering series but I found it too bad. Examples selected are very ordinary. It is more a novel like thing than any programming book. Reading this book , you will end up with zero. I recommend XML By Example, far better than this book.

The book has a few good practical suggestions for XML, like "Now Throw the DTD Away." However, the bulk of the 900 pages contain a rather roughly written overview of XML that is not helpful to the student trying to master XML for some productive use. The various programs on the included disk are likewise not very helpful, which may indicate that the main problem is with the current state of the subject matter. XML is receiving a tremendous amount of hype over an undeveloped and time-consuming variation of SGML, a complex mark-up language that has existing for more than a decade without revolutionizing anything.

I am a Visual Basic programmer who wanted to learn XML. This book started out with history, goals, and the future of XML that took around 50 pages. Then it proceeded with theory that did not stop until the end. For example, it does not tell you how to display an XML document until Chapter 10, and that's 200 pages of boring, useless reading. And when it tells you how to display a document, it does so only theoretically. After quitting reading the book (appx. Chapter 7), I decided to load the sample XML documents from the CD and try to understand them without the book. I was able to learn more with just trial and error in 30 minutes than I was able with this book in 150 pages.

In short, if you want to learn the theory of XML you might like this book, however if you need to learn XML to actually use it, look somewhere else.

It is really a good book for beginner. For every chapter, it will give complete explanation and examples which cannot be found in any other book. Some of the other books just concentrate on example and never give a good explanation on XML. My advice is to save your money and buy this book.

This is a really bad book, i had a presentation to make and even after reading this book for a whole week i couldnt get grasp on xml. The examples chosen in this book are very poor and very few! Take my word, DONT BUY THIS BOOK!