Customer Reviews

The VoiceXML Handbook: Understanding and Building the Phone-Enabled Web

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

 

 

If one calls the first available VoiceXML book the best, one can also call it the worst. Bod Edgar is an expert in computer telephony, but what can you expect to learn about VoiceXML, the language for the Voice Web, from someone who "had little experience of Internet technologies" and "decided to learn about HTTP, HTML" by the summer of 2000, and who doesn't seem to have created any practical VoiceXML applications? He states that one critical decision to be made in writing the book was which VoiceXML version to cover. Oddly, he chose VoiceXML 2.0. Then you realize how convenient that is - he actually revealed it himself: "there were no VoiceXML 2.0 browsers available for me in developing and testing example code." The fact is there were already at least three commercially available VoiceXML 1.0 browsers at the time of his writing (January 2001) for him to develop and test code: cafe.bevocal.com, studio.tellme.com, and developer.voicegenie.com. The next question is: does VoiceXML 1.0 lack many important features in VoiceXML 2.0? No, with strong integration with Web server technologies, applications built on VoiceXML 1.0 can do a lot! Yes, nobody supports VoiceXML 2.0 yet, as it's still an early draft. But many support VoiceXML 1.0, an already powerful language if you know how to build advanced VoiceXML application using web server technologies and some important VoiceXML elements such as <subdialog> and <object>, which he didn't give appropriate coverage at all. He says "A subdialog is a form which is called from another form and returns", where in fact, a subdialog can invoke either a form on the current page or more importantly, another VoiceXML document, which can be dynamically generated by your web application. Again, because the author's inexperience with Internet technologies, you miss great opportunities in learning how to integrate VoiceXML with your web applications.

What further bothers me are mistakes in the book such as "The VoiceXML 1.0 standard was published on March 7th, 2000" - the fact is VoiceXML 1.0 was submitted to and acknowledged by the W3C on that day, and is still on the standardization process now - and that the title for the classic "Hello, World" application is "Hello, Web" - which reminds of the professor George Polya describes: he says A, writes B, thinks C, and the correct answer is D.

Even if you just want to get some basic introduction to the language itself, you'll gain a lot more reading those online documentaion from sites offering VoiceXML browsers. If you want to get serious about VoiceXML and build real-world VoiceXML applications, wait or look elsewhere. This book will make you feel very disappointed.

As a VoiceXML developer, I looked forward to this book. I was disappointed. Too much time was spent speculating on Version 2.0 and not enough time explaining Version 1.0. If you are looking to learn VoiceXML this is not the book.

The book is a general overview of telephony application and a thin introduction to VoiceXML. It covers important matters in a very rapid and unprecise way. It contains even errors in the examples.

As one of the inventors of VoiceXML, I've spent 3+ years explaining voice markup. I just wish I had had this book to hand out to people. This book covers the basics of all the various technologies that come together to make VoiceXML what it is. Whether your background is Speech, Telephony, Web technologies, or even all of the above, you will learn something by reading this book.

The coverage of the VoiceXML concepts is also very helpful and will steer you around many of the early mis-steps that developers make when first using VoiceXML.

If there is any place to find fault, it's with the reference material vis-a-vis current implementations. As others have observed, the book discusses VoiceXML 1.0 and the 2.0 draft. In the real world, it's my impression that very few interpreters ever did or ever will implement exactly VoiceXML 1.0, nor does it seem likely that the particular draft version of VoiceXML 2.0 discussed in the book has been or will ever be implemented. The harsh reality is that there are many VoiceXML vendors, and they are mostly somewhere between the 1.0 and 2.0 specs. I think this is good for the industry, but it does make the author's life more difficult!

I am very disappointed after buying this book. Lot of examples don't work. Lot of mistakes are all over the book. I just tried the example (p. 246) about <subdialog name="..." uri="..." /> then found out that <subdialog /> does not have uri attribute (p. 340) (<submit> doesn't have neither). Some examples use </block> as an begin-tag, some use <block/> as an end-tag. The author use <-- comment --> for comments everywhere in the book. I found a long error-list from this book. I wish the author takes more time to double check before publishing this book. The time you (beginner) spend to make examples in this book to work is more expensive than the money and time you spend on other books or FAQs in the internet. Right now, the only part I use from this book is VoiceXML Reference:TAGS part which, actually, you can find it in any VoiceXML web sites.

In The VoiceXML Handbook: Understanding And Building The Phone-Enabled Web, computer telephony expert Bob Edgar takes the reader through a step-by-step introduction through all the features of VoiceXML (including VoiceXML 2.0). Readers will learn about Graphical Web Browsing, HTML, and HTTP; Telecommunications; Computer Telephony; Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech; and XML. Also provided are a VoiceXML Tutorial and instructions on using Voice Browsers to crated Phone-Enabled Web Sites. The VoiceXML Handbook is an indispensable "how to" reference for anyone who needs to enhance their website with telephony-enabled technology and ability.

I can find more information on the internet on this subject than reading this book. In fact I turned to the internet while reading this book for answers to the questions this book failed to answer.

I have XML experience but, recently, I started working on telephony applications. I agree with previous comments that the author seems to be rather complacent when it comes to applying schemas/DTDs (from the misuse of XML comments to errors in applying the VXML DTD) but I personally found the background chapters very useful. If you are not familiar with SGML or XML, you may need to use an XML parser to validate the samples against the VXML 1.0 spec (DTD) before using any of the code. Be aware as well of the VXML 1.0 to 2.0 changes.

I am director of user interface design at Audiopoint in Fairfax, Virginia -- a voice portal/voice technology company. I work mostly in human factors, not programming. This book is exactly what I've been looking for, because it gives, I feel, an excellent overview of the many kinds of systems, software, and hardware that are involved in the work I do. I agree with another reviewer, who said that the author clearly states that not all the examples will work in every case, for various reasons. The great plus for me is that, even though my training is not for the most part in technology, I could still understand the book. The author takes you, usually, from the very beginning, and gives you the big, simple picture, which is crucial to have fixed firmly in your mind. This book is making it much easier for me to understand our IT people and talk with techies, and visualize various products which I'd like to see our company launch. So I give this book top rating....

I love this book - although not a programmer, per se, I found this book to be very useful from the aspect of explaining what Voice XML is all about. It gives the basics presented in a manner that can be understood by almost anyone. On top of that, the author makes learning XML a joy - yes that is possible!

The author writes in an easy to read style that provides clear explanations and simple examples. But what impressed me most about the book were the code examples provided throughout the book to help illustrate each concept. They made it much easier to grasp the information presented. Since I'm just starting out with XML, I feel very lucky to have this book on as a desktop reference since the author seems to cover it all: how the Web works, how telecom and computer telephony work, XML, voice browsers. Not to mention the step-by-step instruction provided throughout the book.

I also take exception to the review by Horsepower in which he criticizes the book. The author did plainly state in the preface that there would no doubt be errors in the examples and gave a web site where the readers to go to find corrections and updates to the book.