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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Formed, Valid and Human-Readable., June 12, 2002
Coming up with a failsafe structure for a book on XML and ASP.NET must be a difficult undertaking given the number of essential questions that need to be asked: What level should the book be pitched at? How much background material should be covered and at what depth? Once you have devised a satisfactory tack to address these questions, then how should the XML material on ASP.NET be covered? Should we look at implementation or theory. And of course, what languages do we use to demonstrate implementation C# or VB.NET?XML and ASP.NET by Kirk Allen Evans (et al) attempts to address these questions by deviding itself into3 sections. The first section is dedicated to XML on the client but is really 5 chapters worth of XML background from the ground up. Section two is about XML on the server and the third section serves as a Reference of two well annotated appendices. The first 6 chapters deal with XML basics and a gloss of ASP.NET's involvement with this technology. These chapters are well-written on what can be regarded as background information. The chapters assume no XML knowledge, and wind through core concepts such as Push and Pull models, how XML and XSL work with each other, and a grounding on the intricacies of the MSXML and SAX parsers. An outstanding chapter here is one on XML Schemas, 'XML Schemas in .NET'. It can safely be said that this is one of best treatments of the subject that can be found in any book on the market. However it must be noted that the reader who comes to these chapters as an XML newbie will struggle. You must get a good grounding in the fundamentals of XML which are covered in other books. It is in Section 2 that we get to the content as described by the title and where the book comes into its own. The writers have clearly taken pains to elaborate not only how to implement XML using ASP.NET, but also how XML is used in the ASP.NET layer of the .NET framework. So, for example, the chapter 'ASP.NET Extensibilty with XML' looks at the metabase and provides an invaluable lesson on the uses of web.config, and how to manipulate it using the System.Configuration classes. Another good chapter is the one on ADO.NET. The first 20 pages of this chapter (at 200+ pages, probably the meatiest in the book) deals with a very high-level view of ADO.NET. The remainder deals with XML and its useage with the DataSet class. Throughout the remainder of the book, individual technologies are covered while giving glimpses on how to implement the technologies. Of all the advanced chapters, by far the most useful was the one on Serialization. The information contained on the use of XSD Schemas for strongly typed XML Serialization is worth its weight in gold. If there is one chapter that tips the scale on the decision whether to buy a book or not, it would be this one. All in all this is a distinctly worthy book. Not to be taken lightly yet covers the heaviest material with a friendly and can-do approach. It also dovetails nicely as a complement to Dan Wahlin's (XML for ASP.NET Developers) book. There is probably no better candidate for a textbook for XML students who want a clear understanding of XML in ASP.NET.
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