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XML @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
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XML Index - XML Book :
Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days
by Devan Shepherd Paperback - 700 pages 2nd edition (September 30, 2001) Sams ISBN: 0672320932 Dimensions (in inches): 1.19 x 9.07 x 7.38 Sams Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to "hit the ground running" with XML and several of its most important related standards (including XSL, the Extensible Stylesheet Languages; Xpath, the Extensible Path Language; Xlink, the Extensible Link Language; Xpointer; XML-Data Reduced; and XML Schema, to name a few). You will see many working code examples of these technologies and be able to use what you have learned immediately. XML is arguably one of the most revolutionary new computer technologies to come along since the Web was conceived in the early 1990's. You may already know the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and have created Websites of your own. This book assumes that you are a seasoned developer, proficient with a variety of technologies and languages. Some of the working code examples in this book make use of JavaScript, VBScript, Java, databases, Active Server Pages, and object-oriented programming techniques, to name but a few. The goal, however, is not to teach you any of those languages, but rather to demonstrate how XML can be elegantly woven into the fabric of real-world solutions that assimilates the inherent strengths of component technologies. If you aren't a "heads-down, 24/7, coder", don't let that discourage you from continuing with this book. The many working-code examples and detailed line-by-line analyses will give you everything you need to know to use the code immediately and learn along the way. Book Info: New second edition completely rewritten but remains a tutorial-based introduction to XML. Author provides a listing of some of the current tools of the trade to bring the reader up to speed on tools available and how to use them. Customer Reviews Reviewer: A reader from Cupertino, CA This is a best of class introductory book on XML - the author is passionate about the topic. You get a lot for your money with this book. There are plenty of hands-on examples that are well organized and totally explained. I learned enough by reading this book to undertake a major conversion to XML of an older Web system at work. Our company is going to contact the author, who apparently teaches classes as well, to provide advanced instruction on Web Services, SOAP and XML. This guys knows his stuff and the book reflects that. I highly recommend the book. Reviewer: tom12305 from Glendale, AZ United States Again the Teach Yourself in 21 Days series comes through. This book is very easy to understand. A great place to begin your XML journey. Reviewer: Shaun W. Taylor from Raleigh, NC United States Admittedly, XML is not a mature technology, and a thorough treatment (or even introduction) to the changing landscape of XML is a challenge. But this book fell far too short of its goal. Too many inconsistencies to ignore. Many "refer to" captions where the code or screenshot did not match the comment. Some supporting information was only depicted in these missing items, so of course, the reader was left with no context for the caption. Too many code samples that did not work. Speaking of code samples, this book had the smallest amount of samples I've seen in any of the "21 Days" books I have read (6). The code samples included did not begin to describe the text of the book. For example, in the DOM chapter, the author listed roughly 20 properites and 20 methods--yet only two properties, and one method were shown via code samples. Thoroughly disappointing. Further, the author chose to describe only Microsoft's implementation of the DOM! Odd, yes, even odder when you read below that in a later chapter, the author eschews the parser he already told you to download so he can explain the SAX in Java. Let me intersperse a semi-positive comment in the sea of negative ones. The author is clearly a good writer--sentences are well-constructed, and the author is good with words. Unfortunately, he is not as good at instructing. Another problem--the book was published in August 2001, but is already out of date. How can this be? Obviosuly, many chapters were written long ago, and were not rewritten to address any new specifications or emerging standards. While DTD's and XDR are still used, I feel that XSD should have been covered in much more detail--after all, it's the W3C's recommendation, so it should be emphasized. Another general annoyance: I got sick of seeing text like this: "we haven't covered these features, but. . . " when commenting on the sparse sample code provided. Chapter on SAX: useless to me. Why? I don't know Java. Instead of using the MSXML parser used throughout the rest of the book, the author chose to use Sun's Java parser for the SAX chapter. I have no clue why. Plenty of code samples in this chapter--kudos! In fact 65% of the chapter was samples--too bad I don't know Java. Scope was also a problem. For example, namespaces is an easy concept to understand, but the author spent 15 pages explaining them. XSD, a little more difficult to understand, but didn't receive much more attention. I could go on, but I will spare you. Postive side: author is clearly a good writer, and some chapters were top notch. But the inconsistencies were disturbing--detail, skim, detail, skim. In the author's defense, this is an evolving topic, and a thorough, current treatment is next to impossible. I suspect that only Wrox's multiple author approach could do XML justice at this stage of the game. |
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