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XML @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
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XML Index - XML Book :
XML in a Nutshell : A Desktop Quick Reference (Nutshell Handbook)
by Elliotte Rusty Harold, W. Scott Means Paperback - 496 pages (January 15, 2001) O'Reilly & Associates ISBN: 0596000588 Dimensions (in inches): 1.01 x 8.99 x 6.01 Continuing in the tradition of the Nutshell series, XML in a Nutshell provides a dense tutorial on its subject, as well as a useful day-to-day reference. While the reader isn't expected to have prior expertise in XML, this book is most effective as an add-on to a more introductory tutorial because of its relatively fast pace. The authors set out to systematically--and rapidly--cover the basics of XML first, namely the history of the markup language and the various languages and technologies that compose the standard. In this first section, they discuss the basics of XML markup, Document Type Definitions (DTDs), namespaces, and Unicode. From there, the authors move into "narrative-centric documents" in a section that appropriately focuses on the application of XML to books, articles, Web pages and other readable content. This book definitely presupposes in the reader an aptitude for picking up concepts quickly and for rapidly building cumulative knowledge. Code examples are used--only to illustrate the particular point in question--but not in excess. The book gets into "data-centric" XML, exploring the difference between the object-driven Document Object Model (DOM) and the event-driven Simple API for XML (SAX). However, these areas are a little underpowered and offer a bit less detail about this key area than the reader will expect. At the core of any Nutshell book is the reference section, and the installment found inside this text is no exception. Here, the XML 1.0 standard, XPath, XSLT, DOM, SAX, and character sets are covered. Some material that is covered earlier in the book--such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)--is not re-articulated, however. XML in a Nutshell is not the only book on XML you should have, but it is definitely one that no XML coder should be without. --Stephen W. Plain XML in a Nutshell covered: • XML history • Document Type Definitions (DTDs) • Namespaces • Internationalization • XML-based data formats • XHTML • XSL, XPath, XLink, XPointer • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) • XSL-FO Document Object Model (DOM) • Simple API for XML (SAX) From Book News, Inc. Introduces the basic rules of XML syntax for document markup, the details of document type definition (DTD) creation, and the APIs used to read and write XML documents in a variety of programming languages. A series of quick-reference chapters lists syntax rules for XPath, XSLT, SAX, and DOM.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR Customer Reviews Reviewer: Michael Taylor from Oxford, UK XML This book's an authoritative document: covering XML basics like DTD authoring and detailed discussion of attribute types - through to the more esoteric issues of character sets and the tricky XML namespace standards. At every step, I found it easy to follow. It's not a book for the non-computer literate though; more aimed at people with an existing basis of technical knowledge. A techie web-designer would find it a good start. About a third of the book is filled with references. I don't know why, but my heart usually sinks when I see page-filling content like this - that said, ultimately it's the reference books like this that end up covered with scribbles and post-it notes, so while they might not make good reading, they're very useful. It touchs on all the necessary bases - XSLT, XPath, XHTML, XLink, XPointers, CSS - I could go on. This book does. Heck of a basis for future reading: after two and a half years in XML, there's stuff in here that I haven't come across before! Reviewer: buzzcutbuddha from Lebanon, PA United States As usual, this O'Reilly book makes a good reference into XML and is chock full of information. HOWEVER, as it seems to have been the case lately, this book was not very well edited, almost as if they pushed it through to get published. Examples: Page 35: ?, *, + are all listed as allowing zero or one element, where they are actually each unique. Page 133: The authors show linking in an XSL Stylesheet in an XML Document and they list the type of linked in document as "text/xml" which will NOT produce the desired result. They type should actually be "text/xsl". (this can be a quite frustrating error to debug) Similar examples are scattered throughout, plus their decision to not even discuss XML Schemas leaves me a bit puzzled, but I knew that when I bought the book so I can complain too much. If you need a good reference to XML, and you can overlook small errors, then go ahead and purchase the book. If the errors bug you then I suggest you wait for the second edition. Reviewer: dbmpaca from Palo Alto CA What I was looking for: I have some familiarity with DTDs from using them as an occasional reference when working with HTML documents, but I have not had to be worry about the precise and subtle details. I am considering using XML in some (database) applications, and would need to write and modify some limited DTDs and use various of the capabilities covered in this book. I have substantial experience developing and using formal grammars. Hence, I was looking for a book that would explain the "why"'s of the language - the intuitions behind the constructs (for example, how they were intended to be used) and what was behind the inevitable tradeoffs in a language design. A quick sampling of this book suggested that it might be a good fit. However, it turned out to be what I would consider to be an early draft. Linearization and pacing of the information is very poor: - multiple times I could not tell whether an explanation applied to the example above it or the one below it. - new information would be introduced during the explanation of an example without delineating that it was not part of the example. - terms would be introduced in an offhanded manner and then not used until many pages later as a key part of the definition of an important concept. I found myself having to repeatedly searching for these items that had not made an impression when I first read them. - a couple of times I found the information critical to an explanation was not presented until several paragraphs after it was used (needed). - adding to the memory load on the reader, there were comments that "came out of nowhere" and then went nowhere that I could tell. Since seemingly off-hand remarks had turned out to be key definitions (above), nothing could be dismissed as an interesting side comment (which may be what they were intended to be). Multiple times I found myself muttering that the authors had made things much more complicated than they needed to be. Many of these problems could be fixed by first giving a simple statement of the general principle, followed by examples, rather than "defining" the concept from sparse examples. I repeatedly found myself re-reading passages trying to figure out what the authors were trying to say. Overall, this book had a "sloppy" feel to it, closer to something that was a spoken presentation than something intended as a written document. I stopped reading on page 82 (I should have stopped much earlier) when I hit the sentence "... you still have to declare it in the DTDs of your valid documents." First, the sentence properly ended with "DTDs" - there was no reason to mention "valid documents". Second, the authors reverse the relationship: The validity of a document is determined *relative to* a specified DTD, and is not an independent property (ask yourself "DTDs of invalid documents"??). In this case, most readers will know what the authors should have said but it is too egregious a mistake. That the authors would have said/written it and that it was not caught in the editorial process is illustrative of why I categorize this book as "not ready for prime time". Reviewer: MANUEL J HERNANDEZ from Scottsdale, AZ USA I started becoming familiarized with XML a month ago or so, and this book has been an extraordinary reference for me as a begginner, and as I've been gaining more understanding of all the potential that this technology has. It is well written and provides enough examples as it goes along, so as to not overwhelm you with plain theoretical information, without becoming a library of examples either. This is absolutely necesary to get started, since the W3C XML standard just won't do, given it's theoretical approach. Get it: you will need it more and more as XML continues to grow in use and acceptance. |
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