Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself...in 24 Hours)

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

 

 

What's good: a quick summary of major XML technologies, including DTDs, schemas, XSL, SAX, DOM, and more. This book tells briefly what each does, and gives some idea of how the pieces fit together.

What's not: there's not nearly enough here to get a programmer going on a real XML project.

This may help a beginner get a quick, high-level idea of what the big pieces are and how they fit together. Don't expect to get any real work done once you've read it, though.

//wiredweird

scratching your head so much trying to figure this book out then ENJOY! In 24 hours you too can have all the confusion of XML as you when you strarted the book + be a bald! (at no extra charge to you)

I will have to say if you are interested in reading a book about writing xml code about writing xml code. Then this is perfect for you.

Confused? yeh me too... you'd think if someone spent the time to write a book about writing XML code they might would throw you a few more examples of how the actual code is written rather than spending the whole book talking about the history of XML.

I sort of feel like I could tell you anything about XML; how it started, the cool people who could use XML, I could even tell you what XML wore to SGML's birthday party last year. I couldn't tell you how to write the code sadly enough.

At bought this book excited about the prospect of rewriting all of my web applications to take advantage of XML and XSL Templates and stylesheets. Unfortunately, about halfway through the book I realized that every example works ONLY on Microsoft Internet Explorer. Why? Because he uses active X controls (microsoft.xmldom) via javascript for parsing on the client side for every xml example.

Face it, the web is NOT OWNED BY MICROSOFT. Using proprietary technology for a public web page defeats the cross platform foundation of HTML, XML, JAVA, and the web itself. Don't do ActiveX client side, and dont be dumb enough to buy this book. While it's true that you'll learn about XML and XSL, you'll have a difficult time applying it to real life applications without reading another book as well.

For the first couple of chapters I thought it was great. However, as it became more complex, the explanations were in dire need of accompanying examples.
Worse still, the index is so inaccurate that the book is almost worthless as a reference. For example, 'Comments' are supposed to be on page 94, which is a Workshop page. And you will look in vain for PCDATA on pages 54-55.
With a bit more thoroughness, this could have been a really good introduction to XML.

I found this an easy book to read. Its a good primer to XML as it briefly touches areas related to XML. Note that, this 2nd edition has a different author than the 1st edition. The other book good for those new to XML is the Microsoft Step by Step book. They both cover about the same topics but I found the SAMS book easier to read and better organized.

I agree with the gentleman above (Mr. Sholto L. Douglas). I am 1/4 of the way into the book and I was so disappointed I just had to read the review on this book, which I should have done prior to purchasing it. However my previous experience with SAMS books had been excellent so I purchased it at a bookstore based on the publisher. I won't make that mistake again. From now on I'll purchase from Amazon AFTER reading the reviews.

As Mr. Douglas states the examples are sparse and poor. I am used to SAMS books providing many concise examples, analogies and exercises that aid in your learning. Not everyone learns best by theory.

Since I have never experienced Mr. Morrison's work my disappointment lies with SAMS. They usually put out a better product. I will return this book tomorrow. There have got to be a number of books that handle this subject better.

This is one of the worst books I have ever seen.
If not for the fact that it was bought for me, I would seriously look at returning for a refund.

Unfortunatley all I can do is recommend to the schools that I deal that we dump all purchasing of the sams 24hr series.

This book's index, and references to content is so badly done that it had to be done by kids because not even a computer would foul this up so badly.

Even the content itself is inadequate.
Yes I can learn the bare basics of XML with this book, but thats not much more than getting a brocure or similar info of the net for free.

If I had needed real XML knowledge this book wouldnt have even come close. As it is, its not even sufficent for basic knowledge. I know because I have reference material from my job that was better (even without an index on it).

I am surprised that SAMS would publish should a childish publication... My own 12 year old nephew can do a better job of proofreading & editing than the socalled professionals who did this book.

Those reviewers of this book who say its well organized need to learn to read as this book is very disorganized and virtually useless as anything but a $2 primer..
Ie; Its value is equal to a introductory primer that I have gotten in the past (litterally).

I think the bigger problem is not the author but the editors/publishers,proofreaders, who seem to be incapable of reading or scanning or verifying their own work.

I highly recommend not buying any SAMS book ever again.
Especally the 24hr series. The idea of a 24hr book should be that you can learn the subject in 24hr segments (whether clocktime or 24 steps).


An index that tells you page 134 for a item, but you find instead on page 180, or even the endofchapter stuff where it tells you to grab data from another chapter but its acutally yet somewhere else (a different chapter than specified).

I wouldnt consider paying more than $2-$5 for any 24hr sams book, because you will not get your $ value out of it.

I am happy though that I have been successfull in having several schools cancel current and all future dealings with sams 24hr series... Successfully eliminating at least a nice chunk of profit for 'incompetent editors/proofreaders'.


I do wish to point out to anybody considering this book...there are much better books for the same or better price than this.
Again if you must buy this book, get it cheap, say maybe $5 or less, that way you wont feel as ripped off.

This book is a brilliant "searchlight"
through the seemingly endless stream
of acronyms and maze of new/emerging
technologies in the XML world.

Sensibly, it doesn't go too
deep into any one of the XML technologies
but strikes an **excellent** balance by
giving you enough detail to acquaint yourself
with "what's out there, why it's useful and
how it all fits together". It also gives
numerous well-thought-out examples.

A clear guide to "the big picture" without

being superficial -- and that's very hard
to do.

Highly recommended -- nice one Mr Morrison!!

After taking a beginning XML class where the required reading was the O'Reilly book on XML and XSLT (Learning XSLT) I had become completely frustrated with XML all together. I finally started diving through tech books to try to find something written in English and lo and behold Sams Teach Yourself book came to head.

I did have a current knowledge of XML, but this book shed light on an otherwise dim beginning for me. And the XSLT that is in this book is without a competitor when it comes to breaking down and simplyfing the methods for getting what you need layed out on the page correctly.

This book will NOT give you advanced methods such as MODE or IMAGE includes (which is a shame since these are very important); however, if you need to say, "A-HA" to creating an XML document and linking the XSLT and CSS to the file, then this is the book to pick up, jump in, then jump off into something more advanced.

The author managed to nail down the complexity of the XML world by visiting topics multiple times: first for a brief explanation to set the context, then again in-depth to a reasonably detailed level.
This makes some paragraphs look like like "deja-vu"; indeed there is quite some repetition of the material along the run. The reader must be careful not to loose stuff that seems to be known from a previous chapter.