Customer Reviews

XML in Action (IT Professional)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

While this book will give a newcomer *some* idea of how to use XML with Microsoft's XML parser, the examples are weak, and it is difficult or impossible to find detailed information. For example, MSXML DOM methods are listed, but often no parameters are described or explained. The reader is left to experiment to find out how things really work. You are far, far better off getting the Wrox book IE5 & XML, by Alex Homer.

First, I'm neither a Microsoft basher or part of their rally squad. I pay for my references so I'm as critical as anyone about quality.

The Pardi book gives you a good introduction to much of the alphabet soup that currently swirls around XML and related technologies.

The book's focus is on one implementation, the IE5 browser. It is not an academic lecture, a rehash of W3C specifications or an overview of everything. However, if you learn by getting your hands dirty, this is a great place to start.

The book has generous W3C and other references so it's not hard to get into details when you feel you're grounded.

This book is a classic example of how [at least some] techies can't express themselves very well to non-techies. The examples don't work the way the author says they should (I've confirmed one example of this with Microsoft Press, whose rep couldn't figure it out, either), and worse, the author slides sideways into very technical discussions about concepts that haven't yet been defined. The accompanying CD comes with so little explanation that it only makes an already confusing situation worse. If you're trying to learn XML on your own, there has got to be a better choice than this.

Pardi does a good job describing XML. The book starts at "what is a markup language", goes into the specifics of the XML syntax. Document Type Definitions, Style Sheets, and XSL are all covered in enough detail for technically savvy readers. Many of the examples work only in Internet Explorer, and don't work at all in Netscape, so if this is important, be warned. Otherwise, Pardi's writing style is easy to read and the book is well organized. I would give it 5 stars if it wasn't so IE centric.

One of the few books with good concrete examples on XSL. Hard to find anything online that compares with this book.

I thought this book was a great balance between explanation and usage. I don't know what some of these other readers were expecting, but getting "buried" in DTDs and Javascript is sort of the point - and I thought the level of explanation was great. Not too technical (for me), but not overly simplistic either. Good book. I recommend it, especially if you want to quickly learn the IE5 flavor of XML.

This book will give you the same information you can find out on the Web about XML. All hype and no actual real world use of the technology. The included code examples were buggy as well.

As a developer who is in dire need of information to complete a project, I have more questions than answers after reading this book.

One of the few books that give you exposure to much of the IE5 XML parser technologies. The examples actually work, and you'll end up being able to use XML in your websites after reading this book. I thought it was great!

Decent book, but it's already outdated and the code samples are limited. The background information is still informative, but there isn't enough coverage of the API. The DOM API documentation is out-of-date and few useful examples are given. There is no coverage of the SAX API (which is supposed to be easier to use) whatsoever. None of the examples work with a webserver and only work if you open the file locally! I found myself using the MSDN Online website instead of referring to the book.

There are many books on the market that explain XML and what it is and does. This book explains the Microsoft IE DOM, and how to use it in the client. Since Netscape does not support XML, don't look for many examples of how to use it with Netscape. If I had to rely on this book to introduce me to XML, it would fail miserably. However, when I saw the possibilities of using XML to communicate between the client and server in the background, a whole new world opened up for our product. It is now interactive without a screen refresh. We do field level validations in real time. We have dynamic content in dropdown list boxes. This knowledge alone is worth many, many times the price of the book.