Customer Reviews

XML Black Book: The Most Comprehensive Resource for XML - The Next Hot Language for the World Wide Web!

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This is definately the WORST book I have ever read. The authors constantly repeat material. The whole of the book is only about 40 pages, repeated over and over and over. In several instances, they even used the same EXACT text, they just cut-and-pasted to make the book look bigger. The book contradicts it self so many times I gave up after only 249 of the 788 pages. This book was obviously written by people who know nothing about XML. It reminds me of those papers I wrote in school when you had to stretch a 1/2 page paper into a 5 page essay. To be fair to the authors though I have read reviews on the other XML books in Amazon, and it looks like they are pretty much all below-standard quality. I have no idea who would put a 5 star rating on a book like this.

This book is out of print, and it should be. It's an awful book, and I should know - I helped write it! If you are looking for a good book on XML, you could either try the second printing of this book, or a ton of others that are out now. I'm writing this review to tell everyone and anyone to save their money. (If you look at the other books I've written, you'll realize I write great books, and this was just a blip in the continum.)

So why was it so bad? Let me tell you the truth, without making excuses.

This book was written a LONG time ago, so it is VERY out of date. And I was a contract author that came in at the last minute, when the book, I presume, was in jeopardy. Another writer had jumped ship, and frankly I think the book had more problems before I even got involved. Why the lead author Natanya Pitts, didn't complete the book, I'll never know. But she didn't and I was hired and told to write more than 400 pages on the technology that had yet to have to be finalized. There were few if any tools for XML, Microsoft had yet to even release their parser, and the original XML spec hadn't even been finalized.

And I kept telling the lead editor at the time, it was just too soon to write a 'Black Book' on a technology that in essence was still being thought up. With the XML spec not even finalized, and other components like XLINK, XPATH, etc. not even part of the equation at the time, there really wasn't much to write about.

Then I tried to contact the lead author, get copies of the chapters she had written, and confer with her about the book, but to no avail. I never heard from her at all. When I did get her chapters thru the editor, it was only after I had turned the chapters I was assigned. That's why the book repeats itself so much, and is so dijointed. I basically had a list of chapters, and that was it. I didn't even get the TOC until much later! Then the editor kept telling me, write more, regardless of whether there was anything to write about. And there wasn't much to write about at the time, so it was a real stretch. In essence I was told write this many pages, regardless, and to do it within less than 2 months.

I learned a great deal about computer book publishing with this project. It wasn't about quality, it was about quantity. It wasn't about the reader, it was about getting a book out so the publisher could take advantage of the tide of interest in XML. From what I understand, however, things have changed at Coriolis and they realize their missteps.

But I still see other publishers, like Wrox, that seem to take that same approach, and I think it really hurts the computer book industry, but more importantly, hurts the reader.

I wouldn't give up on Coriolis (or any other publisher for that matter), since some of the Black Books are actually very good. But I would take the time to really check out a book before buying it, since series books aren't always written or controlled by the same editors or authors and quality can vary greatly. What I would do, however, is return bad books not only to the bookstore, but also the publisher directly. They need to know WHY a book didn't sell and what readers expect. Oftentimes publishers think a book fails because of other reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the book.

And until readers STOP buying ...thrown-together books, publishers will never learn! I certainly learned NEVER to work on a failing project like this one. My other books all have 5 star ratings and dealing with irate readers on this book (mainly because the lead author failed to even respond to anyone's email) made me realize how important the reader truly is...

This is an excellent book on XML for the programmer who needs to know how to implement XML and it is also good for the layperson who wants to learn about XML. Perhaps not the best book for beginners, but I think the assumption is that if you know about XML, you are not one.

The book is readable, well designed, and best of all they use my favorite format: They discuss a particular feature until every point is clear, then show an example in the 'Immediate Solutions' section. You can actually learn XML by reading this book and trying the examples. What a concept!

I have read and returned a few XML books by the so-called masters, including the one by Goldfarb, and found them to be poorly written, obscure, or overpriced marketing tools(e.g. the XML Handbook.)

The XML Black Book is the only XML book currently available that won't make you feel like you wasted your money.

Clearly the authors of this book were paid by the page and not by the content. The book rambles on repeating subjects over and over throughout 600+ pages. I find it extremely ironic that the authors are trying to show the merits of XML's structural philosophy, and then fail to organize the book properly. The organization of the book is set up like a hypertext document without links, making it impossible to use as a reference.

The key piece of information I did gain from this book was to go to , everything you ever wanted to know about XML.

I'm only on page 130 and the poor organization, inconsistencies, and errors are already getting to me.

The chapters seem out of order and a chapter's content is often only vaguely related to the chapter. For example: "Chapter 3 XML Best Practices" consists mainly of HTML conversion issues (which is what "Chapter 21 Converting to XML" is supposed to be about) and web site planning. I was expecting recommendations based on real-world usage of XML and the reasoning behind the recommendations. I also would have expected the chapter to occur after XML itself had been fully covered.

The examples aren't consistent with the text. For example: On page 78 it is suggested to use all uppercase for elements and attributes, not only is there no reason given for the suggestion, but on pages 81 and 84 the examples have all lowercase elements and attributes.

What bothers me most is that the examples have errors. For example: on page 84 there is an example sentence about a film, and an example of what an XML version should look like. The XML version is missing the end tag for the <film> element. The example XML also doesn't markup the film's title but it does markup the year and actor. For another example: on page 130 the following is given for how to specify a DTD stored on a local system

<!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM;

Yes, it's just a typo, but an example of syntax should be thoroughly checked.

this is the book i use to prop my monitor up to the correct height. thus, it did solve one problem.

I regret buying this book. There is no coherent logical structure to the book. Each chapter seems to have been written in isolation to the others. As a result, simple material covered in earlier chapters is repeated again and again, and some material that should be presented early in the book is left until far too late (e.g. XML entities are left until after XLink!). Simple to grasp ideas are constantly re-explained from chapter to chapter, while more complex issues (e.g. some of the DTD syntax) are skimmed over are not explained at all (one suspects the authors did not understand them).

There is also too much "selling" of XML. Fine, the intro explains why XML is better than HTML, but why is this repeated again and again in each chapter?

I am very regreted to buy this book. If you like to read novel book then this book is for you. Not a technical book or a problem solving in XML. Look somewhere else. Sun website XML tutorial is way much better.

This was the first XML book I bought, I new less after trying to plogh through he book that I knew before. Misses the target.

Cheryl Kirk, aka, Lou K., wrote a review entitled, "I agree with the bad reviews - and I'm one of the authors!" on March 12, 2002.
Her review was more of a slam against her co-author, Natanya Pitts.
Read all of the editorial reviews and customer reviews before making your decision on whether or not to purchase this book.