Customer Reviews

Xml Complete (Mcgraw Hill Complete Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

This book is bad on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin. The typesetter was clearly drunk, as evidenced by the unreadable spacing and inconsistent typefaces used in the code samples. The code samples themselves were often either useless, or just flat-out wrong. The Java code was not only completely extraneous, it was hideously bad, throwing out any semblance of style or normal coding conventions. The XML grammar itself was presented in difficult-to-read snippets of BNF notation, which is an incredibly irritating way to try to learn new concepts. I think the author must have been cutting and pasting from the w3c spec.

It doesn't even seem worth pointing out that much of the information in the book is long out of date.

Just unspeakably wretched. Buy any other XML book, or buy none. You'd be better off.

What was the author thinking i mean the book just talks about java infact one whole chapter i brought the book to learn XML and it doesn't teach you that it teaches you more java then XML.

I read this book cover to cover before I took out the CD. What could be simpler - just download the parser and off you go. No it didn't work like that. The parser isn't on the Microsoft site in that form and without it the book is a waste of time. I find it amazing that a book like this can be written that fails on the most fundamental point - the basic tools aren't included.

What I've learned about XML thus far has come from Internet websites. So I wanted a 'Complete' book on XML to show 'this is what it is, and this is how it is done'. After the first few chapters of this book, I am now thoroughly confused - COMPLETE(LY)!

Imagine a book on Pascal that required you to first learn C so you could write a pascal interpreter, and you'd have the equivalent of this book. It goes from an html for dummies hello world example to page after page of poorly written java, as other reviewers have noted. A true waste of dough.

This was one of the first XML books published, and it was clearly rushed to market to get the early-bird bucks. Very disappointing. Moral: next time, wait and look at some reviews before buying. Once bitten, ...

i bought this book to help me develop xml skills for use on client sites.

I found the book informative and useful ..until page 65..?

after which, when things started to go wrong there was no way to find help, the code did not work and no help was offered, the cd just mirrored the code and that did not work either.

Am still trying to pick up xml looking for a new reference.

The author has demonstrated his mastery of cutting and pasting. I read the first quarter of the book and am about to look for a different one. I am also looking for my receipt to see if I can get my money back from the publisher. Items are not explained well and code is repeated wildly to fill up space. I feel that I know little more than when I started. Some code does not even compile properly. Do not purchase.

This book covers all the necessary areas of XML needed to understand electronic data exchange. The use of Java for the examples is a good choice and is well done. The breakdown of Microsoft's XML Parser is both concise and useful. The breakdown of XML, CSS and DTD is laid out well for the reader. The explanations are clear and the lingo is not too heavy. Overall, the bestbook on XML I have seen yet (and I've seen most of them).

On the downside, it would have been nice to include the XML parser from Microsoft, but perhaps licensing issues caused this to be. You can download it easily enough though, so don't fret.

1. Code samples are repeated over and over with a line added at a time. This padding wastes paper and makes the code harder to follow.

2. The author dumps lots of extended BNF with few examples of what the BNF is getting at. His BNF for a Comment, taken from "WD-xml-lang-970630" looked fishy. I looked at the web site and his example doesn't match what's there. If the BNF weren't just for padding, he would have said a little bit more about how the BNF applies in examples.

3. As others have noted, the code doesn't match the current compiler.

4. Shame on McGraw-Hill for this hit-and-run job - they seem to have no web site for errata or for downloads of corrected code. The book gives no indication of how to reach Mcgraw-Hill or the author, etc.