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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
weighty but not effective, May 25, 1998
By A Customer
This book is a massive (42oz!) tome - nearly 600 large print, wide margin pages with lengthy, poorly typeset code examples. Chapter 7 devotes forty pages to examples of sgrep usage, many of which only show how *not* to use sgrep in an XML application. Chapter 10 has dozens of pages of poorly commented, badly indented java code for a pre-standard DOM implementation. Lengthy runs of approximate code do not enlighten; the space would be better used as an appendix listing the XML spec itself, for example.The introductions to XML parsing were at least informative; the worked examples are tantalizing, but naggingly incomplete; there is the impression that XML should have more significant than the examples express. The first few chapters do a fair job of expressing the idea that XML can do all the cool things SGML can, but in a more practical manner; however, the practical examples in chapter 3 are very restricted, and aren't very convincing about the broad applicability of XML. They certainly don't do a good job of supporting the enthusiasm of the earlier chapters. Chapter 5 is probably the bright light; in only 20 pages, it covers a small example in a convincing and thorough way. Chapter 6 has similar potential - but wanders off into examples of stylesheets without really indicating why instead of what. Finally, Chapter 11 is either truncated or ill-conceived - it begins with a highly abstract treatment of user interface as "negotiation", then stumbles a dozen pages later into an ill-fitting and poorly expanded "shopping cart" example. It never becomes clear if the "negotiation agents" and "negotiation planners" are merely thought experiments in how XML could be made to fit, or actual tools. The CDROM appears to be mostly be versions of tools already on the net; the book lacks a table of contents for the CD, however, only intermittent references to specific tools. In sum, I expected more. In particular, I expect a book about *designing* applications to have more of a design focus, and more focussed, better explicated examples.
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