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Title: Beginning XML, Second Edition by David Hunter, Kurt Cagle, Chris Dix, Roger Kovack, Jonathan Pinnock, Jeff Rafter ISBN: 0-7645-4394-6 Publisher: Wrox Pub. Date: 20 December, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.52 (40 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Dull but effective
Comment: Overall, this book is worth the money...but it's a mixed blessing.
Ye GODS is this book dull. XML is a dry, dull topic to begin with. Declarative programming is a dry, dull topic. (Or perhaps I've just reached my limit with new programming concepts, and they're not fun any more.) This book does little to liven up that native dryness. But I suppose I don't read programming books for excitement and adventure. Still...I've read nerd books that had less of the "propped-up eyelids" effect. There have even been moments when bold propositions on the revolutionary nature of OOP had me feeling the rush of wind in my (now non-existent) hair, the smell of salty sea air in my nostrils, and the the thrill of the chase in my veins.
This book is more like an all-day visit with your prim Baptist grandmother. It might save your soul, but you won't be telling your friends about it later.
Some of the material is covered very well. The opening chapters are clear and concise, and the material on XML namespaces was very helpful to me. Other material is not covered so well. Some of the examples in XSLT, especially XPath, are tossed out, and are hideously confusing. It is only two or three paragraphs later that the confusing aspects are cleared up (if at all). I find this maddening, because I tend to hover on the example, and the paragraph immediately following it, until I figure it out. (I hate leaving unresolved questions in my mind when I'm reading programming books. Too often, they stay unresolved, and then I find myself lost when I'm attempting to code.) When I would finally give up in despair, I'd find the answer a bit further down the page, and realize I'd been wasting my time. Overall, when I got through the XSLT chapter, I understood it, but it was much more frustrating than it needed to be. I sense the lack of a good editor (or maybe any editor) here.
There were also a few strange examples written for, as the author himself admits, the "sheer perverseness" of it. DON'T DO THAT! If you want to have a sidebar where you show some unusual ways of doing things, fine. Keep them out of your primary examples. This is where a good editor steps in, clears his throat, and points a stern, accusing finger at the offending passage. A single word--"Out!"--suffices to bend the author to his will.
But I have to admit that I have yet to see somebody write a good, overall introduction to XPath that doesn't completely confuse and discombobulate a newbie. So it isn't just this author who is at fault.
The chapters on XML Schemas and DTDs are good. The chapters on the DOM and SAX interfaces are excellent. I nearly enjoyed reading them.
A lot of the later stuff in the book doesn't really belong in a "Beginning XML" book, if you ask me. SOAP, XML and Databases, Linking and Querying XML...these seem like at least intermediate topics, if not advanced. In my opinion, the "Beginning" part of the book ended more or less at page 385, even though the book goes on to page 603 before you hit the appendices. (The appendices contain some helpful reference material.)
I'm also not terribly happy with Wrox's "sell more books" technique of having "Beginning" and "Professional" books that have so much overlapping material. A lot of the stuff in their "Professional XML" book is not much more than a rehash of material presented here. It's dull enough the first time! The diagrams on the backs of their books imply that there's a progression from one book to the other. I didn't think that reading the "Professional" book was worth the effort after reading the "Beginning" book. I just picked out bits I was interested in. That meant at the bookstore, because I sure wasn't going to fork over the price for another big book I wouldn't read.
One other thing--the book has far too many errors in it. Admittedly, Wrox is very good at having online errata for their books to provide corrections. But careful editing up front is always preferable. The whole nerd book industry has a really awful reputation for sloppy editing. It's time that changed.
Nevertheless, there's no doubt that this book gives you a good grounding in a broad range of XML topics. Be prepared to be confused by the XLST and XPath material. (Consider looking at other sources for XPath in addition to this one.) Be prepared to visit Wrox's errata page for this book, and write in all the corrections in your copy. But this book does fairly well for a single-volume introduction to XML. If only it weren't so dull!
Rating: 5
Summary: Best XML Introduction
Comment: I've read several 'Introduction to XML' books, and this one is by far the best for users with at little more than a basic understanding of HTML beyond a WYSIWYG environment. Unlike other shorter titles, this book spends a great deal of time covering the basics of XML (without spending many a dry page in theory) and a host of accompanying technologies which make up the family XML belongs to.
There is no shortage of information, examples, screenshots, or explanations. Shortly into Chapter 2 you begin a hands-on approach to learning, using freely available editors and parsers to create XML data files and documents; all in a graduated learning fashion, each example building on the skills gained from the last. Don't want to type it? The code is readily available for download and the book shows the results within screenshots.
Beyond the main body of the book itself are appendices which can provide greater context for you as to how to implement XML in different environments, such as application and web development. These appendices can be skipped without hindering the over-all learning environment.
As described, the title is quite lengthy. However, XML is typically not a stand-alone language, and to truly harness XML you need to understand the other technologies XML uses - and this title gives you that knowledge in a very reader-friendly fashion. What you will gain from reading this title is well worth the time invested.
Rating: 4
Summary: A pleasant introduction, yet many shenanigans
Comment: This book introduces XML concepts at an easy to understand level. The chapter I enjoyed the least was the SAX chapter, mostly because the writer had such an outrageously different style than the rest of the book, and tried a little bit too hard to be entertaining. I understand the third edition will be out soon, so I highly recommend that one. A lot of the material here is very outdated...I think the original publishing date was 2001 for the 2nd edition.
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Title: XSLT : Programmer's Reference by Michael Kay ISBN: 0764543814 Publisher: Wrox Pub. Date: 03 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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Title: XML in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition by Elliotte Rusty Harold, W. Scott Means ISBN: 0596002920 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Beginning JavaScript by Paul Wilton ISBN: 0764544055 Publisher: Wrox Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Professional Xml (Programmer to Programmer): 2nd Edition by Mark Birbeck Et Al, Jon Duckett, Andrew Watt, Stephen Mohr, Kevin Williams, Oli Gauti Gudmundsson, Daniel Marcus, Peter Kobak, Evan Lenz, Mark Birbeck ISBN: 1861005059 Publisher: Wrox Press Inc Pub. Date: 24 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 by David Buser, John Kauffman, Juan T. Llibre, Brian Francis, Dave Sussman, Chris Ullman, Jon Duckett ISBN: 0764543636 Publisher: Wrox Pub. Date: 11 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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