Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML (Paperback)

~ Elliotte Rusty Harold (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Learning the fundamentals of XML might take a programmer a week. Learning how to use XML effectively might take a lifetime. While many books have been written that teach developers how to use the basic syntax of XML, this is the first one that really focuses on how to use XML well. This book is not a tutorial. It is not going to teach you what a tag is or how to write a DTD (Document Type Definition). Instead it's going to tell you when, why, where, and how to use such tools effectively (and equally important when not to use them).Since XML has become a fundamental underpinning of new software systems, it becomes important to ask new questions, not just what XML is, but how does one use it effectively? Which techniques work and which don't? Perhaps most importantly, which techniques appear to work at first but fail to scale as systems are further developed? This book answers these questions. It is not enough to write programs that compile and produce the expected results. It is important to write code that is extensible, legible, and maintainable. XML can be used to produce robust, extensible, maintainable systems.

From the Back Cover

"This is an excellent collection of XML best practices: essential reading for any developer using XML. This book will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your XML applications remain practical and interoperable for as long as possible."—Edd Dumbill, Managing Editor, XML.com and Program Chair, XML Europe

"A collection of useful advice about XML and related technologies. Well worth reading before, during, and after XML application development."—Sean McGrath, CTO, Propylon

If you want to become a more effective XML developer, you need this book. You will learn which tools to use when in order to write legible, extensible, maintainable and robust XML code.

Page 36: How do you write DTDs that are independent of namespace prefixes? Page 82: What do parsers reliably report and what don't they? Page 130: Which schema language is the right one for your job? Page 178: Which API should you choose for maximum speed and minimum size? Page 257: What can you do to ensure fast, reliable access to DTDs and schemas without making your document less portable? Page 283: Is XML too verbose for your application?

Elliotte Rusty Harold provides you with 50 practical rules of thumb based on real-world examples and best practices. His engaging writing style is easy to understand and illustrates how you can save development time while improving your XML code. Learn to write XML that is easy to edit, simple to process, and is fully interoperable with other applications and code. Understand how to design and document XML vocabularies so they are both descriptive and extensible. After reading this book, you'll be ready to choose the best tools and APIs for both large-scale and small-scale processing jobs. Elliotte provides you with essential information on building services such as verification, compression, authentication, caching, and content management.

If you want to design, deploy, or build better systems that utilize XML—then buy this book and get going!

0321150406B10062003

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (October 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321150406
• ISBN-13: 978-0321150400
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #304,791 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Maturing and More Sophisticated XML, September 27, 2003

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

... Harold has put together an advanced overview of ALL
XML.

A significant part of the value of this book is in Harold's assessment of the various proposed extensions to XML, like the XML Schema language, or the abovementioned XLink and XQuery. XML is still growing rapidly, and there is a real need for various extensions. But there is also a consequent need for
independent comparative assessments of those extensions. For example, if you have a book devoted to XML Schema, it might not even tell you that there are other competing schema languages.

En passant, he gives an unusually clear explanation of the difference between a character set and a character encoding. The former is a mapping of some characters to numbers. The latter is an instantiation of those numbers as an actual numerical storage. Often in other books, you can see the two phrases used interchangeably and imprecisely. By contrast,
throughout this book Harold emphasises a precision of terminology. A priori, if you are into XML, then you need to be precise.

I have one minor quibble. He says that multiple XML documents "can be stored in a single file, though this is unusual in practice." He might have added that one of these instances is instructive. If you have a continuously running program that periodically writes to a log file in XML, then during the writing, for efficiency, you would append XML documents to the file. So notice that at all times, the entire file is not an XML document, because there are no enclosing tags.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best XML book I've read, October 22, 2004

By	Norman Richards "..." (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Effective XML is a collection of about 50 tips for working with XML. Although XML seems is simple and easy to use, it's also easy to get wrong. I've often scratched your head and wondered why things like XML Schema, for example, just doesn't feel right. But it wasn't until I read Effective XML that I understood what was really awkward with it.

Because the book is so diverse (an amazing feat considering the small page count), it is hard to single out any specific part as being a reason to read the book. The book doesn't just talk about schemas, the infoset, etc..., it digs down and really explains what is good and bad about the technologies and what the best ways to apply them are. All I can say is that I use XML day in and day out and have learned everything I know by trial an error. I've made many mistakes along the way. I've tried my best to learn from them, but Effective XML was the book that made everything click for me. The best part is that the book went well beyond just helping me see my errors. I've already applied some of the ideas to new work I've done recently and have been able to head off some of the problems I would have encountered.


Effective XML is by far the best XML book I've ever read, and quite possibly the best tech book I've read all year. I might even have to add it to my favorite tech books list. If you work with XML to any significant degree, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish the XML Schema working group had a copy per member, July 10, 2005

By	Steve Loughran (Bristol, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is not a book explaining XML. This is not a book that goes into any depth on XML APIs. It is not a book explaining any one XML format like XSLT, RSS, or XSD.

Instead it is a book on how to work with XML. How to design an XML application to take full advantage of the facilties of XML: schemas, processing instructions, XSL transforms, namespaces. It is all structured to slowly introduce you into the complexities, and deserves to sit up on the bookshelf with Effective C++, Java and Enterprise Java.

If you already know the basics of XML, it is actually quite a good way to learn about some of the more esoteric concepts -from the pragmatic perspective. Too many XML books rant about how wonderful some feature like XML schema's extension stuff is, why XML is the most universal format ever, SOAP and WS-* the best protocol for distributed systems ever, and XQuery everything you need for an XML database.

This book bursts the bubble of hype with rational analysis of what makes sense, and what doesn't. Item 28: Use only what you need, is my favourite: A review of the main XML specs and analysis of what really matters, which comes down to #35, navigate with XPath.

If you are designing an XML schema/system/application, you need this book. If you have to put up with architects telling you about WS-MetadataExchange, WS-Transfer and RDF, you need a copy to roll up and hit them over the head. And, if like me, you are involved in standards bodies that produce XML related things, you need to buy a copy for all the other participants, so that what you produce will actually work.

Remember that XML is a language designed for use by people and machines. The machines have the upper hand. But with this book, and some thinking, you can design XML applications that people can use.