Customer Reviews

XML Pocket Reference (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I thought that I would just give the bottom line on this great little XML Pocket Reference by Oreilly. This book is a perfect quick read for getting yourself up and running on XML as well as being a good quick reference. I bought the book expecting it to only be useful when looking up a XML term while programming and was pleasantly surprised to find that it doubled as a (bare minimum) tutorial for XML. This is a great and inexpensive book for the expert needing a reference guide that is easy to carry around as well as for a beginner that just wants to read a quick and uncomplicated guide to XML.

XML Pocket Reference is a true ode to the concept of "Pocket Reference". It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or an experienced developer, this book that is just a bit larger than your remote control will satisfy your expectations.

The first 10 pages of this 97 pages booklet will get you quickly up and running with the terminology, good enough to understand the structure and to be able to discuss the concept with colleagues. As in most O'Reilly books, the writer expects you to have some experience in programming as it discusses the concept and syntax quickly and without major examples.

The rest of the booklet is a reference to XML elements and attributes, document type definitions and the extensible stylesheet language. This section is a great reference as everything is easy to find and well indexed. For beginners this part of the "book" is a great but sometimes complex tutorial as every section is supported by quick samples of code.

When I bought this book, I was sceptic with the idea that this book was going to get me developing XML within 1 day. But O'Reilly proved that I was wrong. In less than a day I had my first XML page up and running, and now I use this book to give me the basics for every concept I try to implement.

One reviewer was right when he said on O'Reilly's site that you don't need a 500-page book to learn or develop XML.

This is a great effort from O'Reilly. As a developer I find it discouraging to be handed a 1200 page book on every topic. I now spend lots of time finding a small book with the right stuff and no filler. It pays off in a major way and this book is a great illustration of just that. The author gives the staright facts and suggestions on use without the fluff and pages of what he thinks about it. Buy it. Read it. Develop something useful. Get on with life.

O'reilly books rarely miss the mark for being to the point references, and this is no exception. You'll get a better understanding of XML here than from books 10 times as long, and you get it without the geek humor. Plus it won't break your wallet. Without hesitation.

What can I say? In a very short time, this book made me productive with XML applications. It will do the same for you. This is a clear, concise, and thorough text. In a way, the best thing about the book is that its small size projects the (true) psychological feeling that there really isn't all that much to basic XML - this gives you the confidence you need to move forward and start doing work.

Here's what you get: XML syntax, Namespaces, DTDs, XSL, XPointer, XLink. You're not going to get Schemas, SAX, DOM, or the author's favorite emerging XML dialect. What is so funny about this book, as with all other XML books, is that the XSL section is the longest. XSL is truly convoluted and the author does a great job getting you through it.

Far be it for me to aspire to the greatness of this author, but I found one tiny thing missing from the DTD section, and I will share it with you here: External Parameter Entities. These basically allow you to leverage one DTD within another. It's like a C #include or a Java import. You put them at the bottom of your DTD. So let's say you had a DTD called "stuff.dtd":

<!ELEMENT stuff (thing*)>

<!ELEMENT thing (#PCDATA)>

You could use the "stuff" element in another DTD, say "closetcontents.dtd", as follows:

<!ELEMENT closetcontents (clothing,stuff*)>

<!ELEMENT clothing (#PCDATA)>

<!ENTITY % STUFF SYSTEM "stuff.dtd">

%STUFF;

The last two lines are the external parameter entity...they are the equivalent of an #include statement in C or an import in Java. I made STUFF all caps in the entity declaration to differentiate it from the "stuff" element but as far as I know you don't have to do this.

By no means does my tiny addition say that this is an incomplete book. It is a fantastic book and literally 99.99% of everything you need to know about XML. I don't think the author forgot the thing I described, I think he thought that this feature was too arcane to mention. Many people would agree, but in case you needed it here it is. BTW, another book I highly recommend is Elliotte Rusty Harold's "XML Bible," which is also available on Amazon. That's where I first learned about the external parameter entity.

This book is great for quickly looking up almost anything XML-related, sort of a pocket XML-English dictionary. Excellent if you have to travel (I took my copy to London in my laptop bag). However, I found that the XSL section is missing descriptions of several elements that have been added to the specification since the book was published a year ago.

As with all pocket references, you'd expect to have some knowledge of the topic before you can have any use of the book. This book clearly violates this rule. It goes beyond just being a reference. For an experienced programmer who does not have the time, nor does he need, to waiste on hundreds of pages to get to the point to learn XML, this book is the answer. I admired its style from the first 10 pages. I wanted to say a lot more about this book, but thanks to all of the reviewers who preceeded me, I will adhere to the "pocket" spirit and say I agree with all the above praise !

Having read "Teach Youself XML in 21 Days" and "XML by Example" it is nice to have a quick reference by the mouse since I can't remember the syntax of things. The best thing in this book is pages 39 to 71 - all on XSL style sheets. It's well worth the cheese! And amazon have it at discount!

This concise reference is excellent in its coverage of XML, Namespaces, XSL, XLink, and XPointer. It doesn't mention XPath and XSLT explicitly, because when it was written (mid-1999) they hadn't been separated out from XSL (but they are covered under XSL).

There are a couple of areas which could be improved:

-- It's a bit annoying that it assumes that XML is primarily an extensible HTML: a way of representing documents whose appearance will be specified using XSK stylesheets. Although this is misleading, and ignores the tremendous value of XML for data interchange, it doesn't diminish the value of the reference material; still, it colors the examples and the general approach.

-- Pointers to Web resources would have been useful. (e.g. oasis-open.org).

I hope that O'Reilly plans to revise this useful reference frequently while XML continues to evolve rapidly. In the meantime, it will be useful to check the w3.org site regularly.

This is an excellent quick reference quide. While other publishers are scratching their heads trying to figure out what XML is, Oreilly gets the info on the street in timely fashion. Hopefully they'll following up with one of their "Definitive Guides" to XML soon.