Customer Reviews

Professional XML Web Services

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

 

 

Wow! This is yet another example of publishers sacrificing book quality for the desire to get something out to market quickly. I have truly enjoyed reading some Wrox books, e.g., Java Server Programming. For these types of book the "one author per chapter" model works out OK because the topics are independent. In this case, the results are terrible. The text has poor flow. There is lots of repetition because, apparently, the authors have not communicated well. There are many inconsistencies and bugs in the examples. Also, there is hardly a developer out there who needs to build web services on .NET and J2EE and using C++, Perl and Python. Pick a platform and focus. Teach me something real. For example, the book talks about the Apache SOAP engine. Well, anyone familiar with the Apache web service efforts knows that Apache SOAP is deprecated in favor of Apache Axis (their next gen web service engine). I'm hoping that "Building Web Services with Java" (still not out) is going to do the right for me but I'm not optimistic. Please, someone write a good book on web services that combines theory and practice in a single easy to read package.

I realise this book is now out of date, and therefore not relevant to much of what is happening in the Web Services world. However, when I first read it, it did help me get an understanding of some of the more important Web Services fundamentals. The tutorials on WSDL and SOAP especially were useful to me, as were the comparions of the various vendor toolkits that implemented SOAP messaging. There may be more current books out there, but if you can get a used or discounted copy of this title, it's still worth it.

This is a good intro to various topics related to web services, probably the best one available so far (admittedly a pretty small field at this time). It covers the standards behind the technology and proceeds to practical working examples of how to put web services into use. There is some coverage of projected future technologies, but mostly sticks to systems that are currently available (skipping, for example, Apache Axis). The author-per-chapter approach means the chapters are somewhat independent, so you can select a topic of interest and go right to that chapter, without having to read everything that came before it. On the other hand, it means some material is covered in multiple places in the book.

This book is poorly written and organized. While a few chapters and topics are treated well enough most of the content is jumbled and confused and one wonders if the authors in some places actually understand their topics. There are too many good books such as the ORielly books or the Sams book on Web Services to even bother with this book. Skip it and spend your more money on another book.

This is the first of what promises to be a slew of new books coming out on Web Services. As the first book out I guess it's what you'd expect from a book rushed to press. The examples are frequently flawed. If you're already familiar with most of the technology, or you're willing to read the documentation of the WSTK and various Apache documents along with this book you'll find this book a good primer. However, if you're new don't go for this book. The examples tend to be a mixed jumble flowing from COM, Java, NET and even Perl occasionally with in the same example. If you're planning on using all those technologies (and have them all set up) you might be ok. However, if you just want to build a Java webservice, well this isn't the book for you.

This is a pretty good anthology about web services, with a number of different topics covered in depth. I like that you can read just a chapter about a subject of interest without having to read the whole book up to that point. At 1000 pages, I wouldn't want to read the whole book from beginning to end anyway. However, it is uneven. There are some good chapters about SOAP, but other chapters, for example, UDDI, are not so good.

Do you have to develop Web Services within the next few months? Then this is a good book to have.
Remember, that this is a new technology and things seem to be changing at a very rapid pace. So, by the time you buy this book verify that this is not out of date. In the current form, I would recommend this book till early part of 2002.

I am totally new to Web services, and know not a lot about XML. This book I found was for me a very nice general overall introduction to webservices. It was enough to get me immediatley started in Web services. I can definitley recommend this book to anyone new to Web services.

I would rather wait for the tech to mature for better quality books. I got lost and never proceeded to read after a few
initial chapters. My advice to the authors would be to keep the readers interested and not throw him/her off course and lose interest totally in the subject.

Since Chris Dix works at navtrak and they have problems with web services working. They must be using only this book. Navtrak is the worst.