VRML Books

The main problem with the book is it's lack of focus. It's neither a book for business people trying to value ebXML, it's neither a book for technical people trying to get more detail about ebXML.
The business intro is poor. It's a collection of trends without much structure or insights.
The technical part is mainly an intro.
I was disappointed. Is mainly my problem, but I would advise future buyers to look for more focused books.

This book provides a nice combination of the technical underpinnings of ebXML with an explanation of the new business strategies that it makes possible.

Too many managers believe that they can conceive and implement an eBusiness strategy without understanding the underlying technologies. This hubris contributed to the recent rash of web business failures. The Kotok and Webber book does an admirable job in explaining the technical to the business mind and the business to the technical mind. And I believe that even many of the more technically inclined will benefit from the history of how ebXML came about and how it leverages but is fundamentally different from Electronic Data Interchange.

The global focus and variety of examples from both business and not-profit organizations is also a welcome widening of the normal discussion of eBusiness.

I would read this book before many of the supposedly more business savvy tomes on eBusiness.

Like we know it from Alan and David both are good in describing complicated technical stuff so you can comprehend it. Therefore this book is a good introduction into ebXML's concepts, and even in some eBusiness, EDI and Markup Background.

One will recognize David's previous work on XML/EDI in that book. Very good examples about (mainly) small companies which can benefit from electronical exchange of business information.

This book does not aim to help programmers to implement ebXML, but it does aim to understand management, business analysts, edi experts and programers the requirements of business.

Personally I missed a bit the practical help you could expect from a writer so deep into ebXML and EDI. So the examples of possible gains in business sound a bit constructed, and you always miss kind of proof, that especially ebXML is the tool to make the job done.

If you are a troubled EDI Expert and wonder, how to solve those every day problems you have with "missing informations", "ERP systems which do not have article data", or simple "expensive carriers", you might wonder yourself, where in the ebXML technology is the solution to those little details. There are a lot of good concepts, which eventuelly will help you (if they get explored in great detail).

In the book you will learn a lot about the joy of automatically setting up a ad-hoc busines, you will learn that you never again have trouble receiving foreign char sets and you will learn how detailed industrie organisations can describe common knowledge in UML. How easy business would be if.... But you might actually feel, that there is something missing, which is not described in this book.

So in short, it is a good book to get to know ebXML and therefore it is highly recommended. I especially recommend this book because it is one source to establish knowege inside your company, no matter if it is an programmer, business analyst, sales guy or the manager of information systems or business development.

As a small side note, dont know how you feel about the layout, but I needed to get used to it.

On the other hand this book is a GREAT jump-platform. Each chapter is closed with dozents of links and ressources as footnotes. Dont miss to ander off and actually follow those references.

I found this book nice to read but pretty poor in terms of practical information. If you're looking for material to waffle at a VC it's all here but don't expect to sit down and start writing applications after reading it...

This book doesn't purport to cover programming. Instead it is a comprehensive guide that describes ebXML from business and technical perspectives, and does so is such a clear, well written manner that it deserves 5 stars. If you're more interested in writing ebXML applications you may want "ebXML Simplified" by Eric Chiu (ISBN 0471204757), which shows how and provides sample code.

What I most like about this book is the way the authors manage to integrate the technical details with the business value of ebXML without going over the heads of business users or talking down to IT professionals. I also like the fact that the book is kept up to date on the companion web site, and the additional information that is provided there to supplement what is covered in the book.

The highlights, in my opinion, are:

Chapter 2, ebXML in a nutshell. This chapter uses clear prose and illustrations to portray ebXML, how it fits into an enterprise solution, and all of the underpinnings. If you only read these 30 pages you'll come away with a solid understanding of what it is and how it works. The next chapter, ebXML at Work, takes this material a step further with case studies that are realistic.

All of Part II, which shows how ebXML fits into the much larger XML picture (including an interesting history of XML and how it evolved from SGML). History aside, this section ties together a number of related technologies, such as Java, XML, HTML and platforms. In fact, the four legs of a table metaphor that the authors use is one of the most elegant depictions of the interrelationships I've seen. They don't stay at high level, however. The book drills down into DTDs, and also does an excellent job of describing the business processes and technical architecture in terms that anyone can grasp. I especially liked the way UML and use cases were introduced.

If you want a book that describes ebXML (and in a larger sense, XML) from business and technical perspectives this is the one to read.

I would like to review this book well... I would like to say how wonderful this book is.

I can't.

This book is a perfect example of code that half the time only works well in Internet Explorer on Windows. Standards? No. JavaScript is pretty messed up too.

In short, if you use this book for reference in building your website, make sure it isn't a professional site, or you might just lose customers.

[the title is referring to when a dog dies, it may have a disease, and if you touch the dog, you may catch it. - this book is some what like that, it teaches you bad habits that may take a long time to fix.]

I loved this book. I already had a good general feeling for HTML, but this book really makes it easy for you to learn it. Lots of graphics, highlights, and great sectioning of this book make it a GREAT buy. When there was something I wanted to look into, it was easy to find and the section went into enough detail for me to know it without reading about the history of the funtion like some other books do.

The best thing about this book is that it's CONCISE! Most books go into unnessasary detail or drone on and on just to make the book bigger and thus try to make itself seem like a better value, but this book doesn't. It is well written and gets straight to the point! ... uh. unlike this great review! =)

At the time of this writing, this book is very outdated. What does it take to update a Book like this? Not very much. Animabets.com does not exist anymore, and they constantly cite examples using this website, not to mention any software they recommend is also way outdated, and their examples don't work with any current software. But I'm not saying you couldn't learn HTML using this book. It just wastes a lot of your valuable time.

as i used this item i was amazed at the ease of use and the good pictoral examples given on each page with red lines showing where every thing is and how it works there is no better book to learn html

You know the old saw, "never judge a book by its cover"? Not only teaches the novice the intracacies of HTML, but is also a superb reference for the accomplished coder. I call it the "Webster's Dictionary" of HTML books because the end effect(s) (think "word(s)" using the dictionary analogy) is side-by-side with the HTML code (the "definition"). I have many HTML books, but I find myself coming back to this one as my steady and reliable desk reference on HTML.

I am a professional web designer and have wanted to further my skills into the relm of web development. I found this book and started reading it immediately. It is an excellent resource for web design and development as a whole. It goes into technologies such as ASP, PHP, Java 2, Usability and Design rules, Creating Graphics, basic web design fundamentals, CGI, a little C, Coldfusion, Perl, XSL, XSLT, XHTML, SSI, CSS, DHTML, JavaScript, VBScript, database design, ADO, just about everything. It gives a great introduction (40-60 pages or more)into most of the technologies used in web design and development and goes in depth on XML, XHTML and Java 2 best of all it tells how all the above technologies can work together. Not only xml and xhtml. but how ASP and perl relate. No it doesnt come with a CD but I have had no problem compiling the code and getting it to work. A CD would have been nice but the information in the book is so useful that its worth the price without the CD. It is easy to read (if your into reading computer books) and is the best resource that I have found on web development technologies and how they relate to each other. It is a great book and I recommend it highly to any college student aspiring to get into web work (as long as they know HTML) or any professional web designer or developer at any level. This book is a must have.

I bought this weighty tome (AU$115) because it had a section on XML and Java and some specific code that appeared to be what I needed for an urgent project. Firstly, the book did not come with a CD, so you had to download the code. Once you downloaded the code, it became apparent that the code for the chapter I was interested in (chapter 42) was not amongst it. I had to type it all in. I had difficulty compiling the code, which may have been some misunderstanding on my behalf. I finally got it to compile; but kept getting runtime errors. I couldn't get it to work.

I gave up.

I expect when I purchase a book, that most if not all (no one is perfect) the examples will work. I also believe that expensive and expansive books like this one should come with a CD that not only fully reflects the code in the book; but also contains a HTML version of the book as well to facilitate searching.

My comments only reflect upon the Java XML chapter 42. I have been reluctant to use the book any further. I hope the next edition rectifies the present short-comings.

Not as comprehensive as I thought. The only best thing of this book is that it talks about almost all the web languages, give you the basic understanding.

Platinum Edition XHTML, XML & Java 2 is separated into several sections, each of which focuses on a specific technology, including: XHTML, XML, JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, CGI programming with Perl, Server-side Programming with ASP, ColdFusion & PHP, and Java 2. Throughout the book, the authors focus on the features & benefits of each technology, giving readers a well-rounded education in current web development tools & techniques. In addition, the authors demonstrate the value of combining various technologies (such as Java & XML) for more powerful web solutions. User Level: Intermediate - Advanced,

I am a network security engineer, not a Web developer. When I first saw this book's title, I realized I lacked an understanding of XHTML, XML, Java, and other subjects listed in the table of contents. The book's 2.5 inch thickness and 1400 pages were daunting, but skimming the first few chapters showed the text to be lively and informative. I gambled that I could at least gain some familiarity with modern Web technologies by buying this book.

That gamble paid in spades. This book will provide a computer-familiar reader an idea of the plumbing behind modern Web sites. The text describes many varieties of Web-building tools, and includes clear explanations, examples, and code. I especially enjoyed learning from the book's dozens of figures. These typically show the results of executing example code, with the captions giving excellent summaries of points made in the text. For example, rather than writing "Here is a sample of Netscape Dynamic HTML layers," the caption on p. 684 says "Netscape Dynamic HTML layers can be used to show context-sensitive information on your Web pages."

I could not find any faults with this book, although Web development is not my specialty. If you are looking for a book to make you an expert in any one or two of the subjects covered (i.e., JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, even XHMTL), you will not be satisfied. The authors recognize this point and direct focused readers to more comprehensive sources. If you are looking for a guide to what makes Web surfing and serving work at a technical level, I strongly recommend this book. Keep in mind that rapidly evolving Web processes can make books like this less relevant as time passes. If you believe this particular edition is becoming obsolete, be confident that the authors' next edition will be just as educational.

Note: I congratulate the editors and four authors for creating a "cohesive" 1400 page book. I was pleased to see each chapter explicitly bearing the individual author's name, and glad to see seamless references to work in chapters by different co-authors. Bravo Que.

Definitely not a textbook for XML newbies.

You need to learn Python Language before understanding this book, wtf?

If you are looking for a quick guide and learning book for XML, you might be disappointed by this paper-brick.

Might be a fine reference for XML veterans.

i agree with the previos Readers, but the most of the Sourcecode downloadable from http://www.garshol.priv.no/ is missing.
In most the RSSKIT library from the greatest Artikel in this Book.
Also missing some smaller parts like SAXTRACKER and more.
It seems also that the Code is almost out of Time.

This book requires a solid working knowledge of XML and associated protocols (XLST, XPath, XML Schema), Python and Java), and is written for practicing developers who are involved with web services, e-commerce and extended supply chain applications. You should also be reasonably familiar with DOM, data structures and relational databases to get the most from this book.

After a quick introduction to the XML processing the author wastes no time getting to the meat by going into processing types in Sections II (Event-Based Processing), III (Tree-Based Processing) and IV (Declarative Processing). Each of these sections are comprised of chapters and topics that cover the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, common tools and example applications, and tips and techniques.

Section V is focused on Java development, including SAX in Java, DOM in Java and XSLT In Java Applications. This section covers APIs, tools and specific considerations for each topic.

The final section addresses XML processing in detail, and deals with alternative processing approaches (including hybrids of event-, tree- and declarative-based models), schemas, and RSS.

In addition the appendices are informative and add to the value of this book. In particular, Appendix A, A Lightning Introduction to Python, will get seasoned developers up-to-speed (augmented by Appendix C which covers Python XML Packages). Appendix B is a glossary that goes into considerable detail, making it a handy reference.

I found this book to be well written, complete and devoid of fluff. An excellent companion to this book is the three book bundle titled "The Definitive XML Professional Toolkit", which contains CHARLES F. GOLDFARB'S XML HANDBOOK by Charles F. Goldfarb and Paul Prescod, DEFINITIVE XSLT AND XPATH by G. Ken Holman and DEFINITIVE XML SCHEMA by Priscilla Walmsley.

I went the the bookstore - looking for a good tutor on SAX (the Simple API for XML). Unfortunately most of my choices were just overgrown reference manuals...

Not so with Garshol's manuscript. For only a little more money I recieved a lot more on general XML processing than just SAX (and more on SAX than most of those other books). "Devinitive XML Application Development" is a well written book covering the most prevailent operations in XML processing and how to implement them (using the most popular event-based, tree-based and other APIs). Also, as a testiment to Garshol's writing, I was able to understand the examples used throughout the book even though he uses Python - a foriegn language for me. There is also a quick tutorial on Python in the appendix.

One minor nit: this book doesn't have any reference material to complement the wonderful text. However, another book in the series (Charles F. Goldfarb's XML Handbook) covers that. Besides, a reference alone won't give you, "...the skills, insights, and example code you need to build [XML applications] right" (from the back cover, which says it better than I could).

A book about XML and distributed systems, published during 2002, and no discussion about XML Web services?? Makes me wonder how old the content is. I am an experienced architect and developer on different platforms and I found this book completely useless.

The author obviously is a creative and intelligent person and his work presents several fantastic ideas and concepts. However, his writing style is almost stream-of-consciousness. The nuggets of true value in this book must be gleaned from excessively wordy paragraphs and multiple tangents to explain trivialities. The result is that beginners will likely get lost or confused, while the experienced reader will get bored. I would love to see a second edition of this book wherein the content has been edited by an experienced technical editor to clean up the verbiage and make the book more concise and clear.

I am in consultancy field from past several years and got my hands on this book last week. It's good. I agree that this is a lasting work, with collection of ideas for applying XML to everything (well almost). I have also done lots of XML work and usually go through almost all the books on the subject, but this one has some extra value. I liked the explaination, which serves both for beginners and advanced modelers. I am also an architect for several systems and was quite impressed with the model presentation. Another important and good thing is that this book does not insist that you know lot about customary UML knowledge. The schematics are simple and easy to grasp for anyone.
You can have this book even on the road, and I promise it would add value to whatever you know about this subject. I would suggest to buy this book for sure.

I am a chief architect in consultancy business. I have probably read all XML books released so far and closely looked at all of them. But there wasn't any book on design and modeling. This book is definite go for beginners and experienced architects. It explains the concepts and basics of systems modeling, from XML point-of-view. Good job by the author, as he had explained the core concepts of using XML. This book does not have much of code, but I guess there are enough books on coding aspect. This book deals primarily with application of XML to systems. The chapter on open-system is outstanding and is the part I liked most. I also teach part time and have suggested this book for XML reference and tutorial. The good thing about this book is that it tries to create ideas of applying technology and does not play with toolkits and programming. I believe coding and system architect belong to two different domains. The book also shows some case studies of interest, which are supported by interfaces - good!! I would definitely suggest to buy this book, a good one!!!! :-)

Anyone who uses Movable Type on a regular basis needed the book. It covers all of the basics around installation, setting up blogs and writing entries. But then it goes into more advanced topics like alternating the template and adding plugins. And even more advanced topics like RSS, Atom, and writing your own plugins. This is thorough book that is well written and will cover everything you need to know to blog with Movable Type.

This book is great for experienced and curious users. It's quite technical for lay users and the way information is presented isn't terribly user-oriented.

But the biggest problem is that Six Apart has updated Movable Type in ways that make this book obsolete in some aspects and that make it necessary to translate concepts in others. At this point, it's probably not worth the trouble to buy the book, and also probably not worth the trouble to write this kind of book when updates are so extensive and frequent.

Unless you already have solid experience writing software, you will find this book overwhelming. But it is better than the program documentation. There are few other choices. It looks like it was rushed to press and many of the examples don't quite work on my provider's server configuration, e.g., I don't have access to the unix command line so isn't always easy to envision the file structures. (If you didn't understand the last line, you might consider paying the folks at Movable Type to build your blog.)

But in all fairness, this is a difficult subject to explain. Since personal blogging is so new on the scene, it seems like the blog jargon is still a little fuzzy. Liberal use of Google helps. Since many of the concepts in blogging software are new to me, I would have appreciated a clearer explaination in the introduction, perhaps with some graphic illustrations. Some of the topics here, "Publishing with Movable Type" for example, are filled with examples and terminology that belong in a later section of the book. It would suffice to just give the reader a broader overview of how the software works.

This is a great reference book for beginners... I myself am a seasoned systems analyst and already had books that covered most of the basic topics discussed in this book. There were no real world examples and nothing about the pitfalls of using web standards before they are even supported by popular browsers. Like I said at first, it is a really great reference book; and if you need one to get started, this is it! You will still need a book dealing with the methodology variations in coding.

How the Web has grown! In doing so, and aiding its growth, has been the use and development of several languages. Naturally, Schafer starts with the language that birthed the Web - HTML. Actually this needs its dual ("twin") on a server, http. But Schafer discusses http in a later chapter devoted to CGI.

Hopefully, you should be able to appreciate that HTML is simple. In fact, of all that the book discusses, HTML is the simplest language. Several initial chapters walk you through HTML. It must be stressed that mastery of HTML is needed to make sense of the rest of the book.

The later languages either extend the scope of an HTML file, or they generate the file, roughly speaking. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) lets you easily factor out common definitions that are used across multiple web pages, where you can imagine that each web page corresponds to a file storing it. Schafer explains how to use CSS to simplify management of a set of HTML files. A centralised way to set common fonts and the like. More robust.

But HTML is a declarative language. Good, because laymen can more easily understand and write such languages. It's easier to say what should be done, than how to do it. But for the times when you need more expressive power on the browser, Schafer offers JavaScript. A procedural language that actually has nothing to do with Java. [The coincidence in names was a marketing ploy.]

Schafer does not ignore the server. CGI is given, as the first generation attempt at server side code. Its limitations spawned the use of Perl, PHP and Python for easier parsing of user input and generation of new dynamic pages.

Each of these languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, PHP and Python) is often the subject of its own book. No surprise then that Schafer explaining all 6 gave us a book of this length!

This is a good book to refresh yourself on the syntax of each language, but don't try to learn web standards from this book! It spends about 10 pages in the HTML language section talking about how wonderful tables are when used to control the layout of your entire site. Anyone with any experience in HTML knows that this is a very bad idea. The Perl section had a few things wrong in the code as well. Overall, I was not impressed with this book. I probably could have gotten better tutorials for free on the internet.

This is a great introduction to XML book. It covers all of the subjects in enough detail to give a good overview, but it doesn't go into too much detail about advanced topics like some intro books do. The illustrations and examples are good for someone who is new to XML. If you are looking to learn the fundamentals of XML, this book is a good choice.

This book provided an excellent overview and introduction to the XML language. It provides a lot of good examples without relying on too many third party products. It is short enough to get through quickly, but also gives enough technical details to give readers a solid understanding of the topics. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn XML.

This is the worst technical book I have ever read. The information is wrong in places. The information is far too abbreviated in the entire book. I would not even call this a book. Being very kind, I would call this a leaflet.
Far too many fluff drawings, blank pages and repeated information. Specifically, this book advertises to have 192 pages, but only about 100 pages have relevant information; the last page number in this book is 167, which is at the end of the index. This is followed by 13 completely blank pages.
If you want a book on XML, start with "Beginning XML" by David Hunter. It has all of the details that you need to understand XML. From there, you can tackle XSL, JDBC, etc.

This book is highly irritating for eight reasons:

1. It constantly tries to SELL you on VRML. Every tenth word is
"exciting".

2. It tells you all sorts of irrelevant stuff, like VMRL 1.0,
early VRML history.

3. It gives almost no examples.

4. It has almost no illustrations of what the VRML will render to.

5. It reads like a W3C reference manual. It constantly presumes you already know everything so there is no need to explain anything.

6. Here is an example of some prose that tells you that you must write "Shape { geometry Sphere" in that order.

"For geometry nodes to appear to the viewer, they must be contained by a Shape node and they can only appear in a geometry field of a Shape node. Geometry nodes can't be children of group nodes because they aren't leaf nodes. Geometry nodes, therefore,must be contained by Shape nodes. The shape node contains one Geometry node in its geometry field."

ALL THIS WITHOUT A SINGLE EXAMPLE OF WHAT THE HECK HE IS TALKING
ABOUT.

7. You come out the end not able to even do anything more complex than the two simplest W3C examples.

8. 3/4 of the book has nothing to do with how to write VRML.

This book is covering all the features of VRML, we waited long for such a work!

The Language is understandable and clear.

Creating Web Pages by Preston Gralla and Matt Brown (ISBN 0-672-32690-6) does start out well. It gives one a great overview of what the internet is and how it works. The book then proceeds to explain the basics of HTML and how to plan out a website in very comprehensive and understandable language. After the first three chapters, you have to skip ahead to find out how to effectively prepare and add graphics to your pages. In between, there are chapters dealing with building websites on Geocities or using Yahoo PageBuilder or Netscape Composer to actually build your site. The problem I had is that everything is really geared to PC - Window based users. I have a MAC and there is really nothing in the author's approach to show that things change and that there are differences between the MAC and PC platforms and how pages may appear.

The last third of the book deals with eBay listings and Blogs. The section about eBay is pretty extensive, giving the reader all sorts of helpful information about everything from finding items to sell to preparing effective graphics to post to pricing and effective ad copy writing. If interested in opening an eBay store, this is a great resource to turn to. Again, the authors explain things thoroughly and in an easy to read manner.

Finally, there is a section about Blogs, which was interesting, since I have never really had a clear understanding of what a Blog was. So while helpful, not something I am interested in creating.

Overall, the book is good for a beginner with a PC. It is excellent if you want to sell on eBay. If you are a MAC user, I'd recommend finding another book.

As the web has grown, several modalities of usage have become iconic. In response, Gralla and Brown explain 4 of these. To be sure, entire books are devoted to eBay alone, for instance. But this AllInOne text steps back and offers a consistent thematic understanding. Based on being able to make a web page.

The early part of the book goes over HTML basics. You need mastery of this to proceed. The book then gives the 4 modalities as case studies. You may well not want to learn all of them. But if you are reading this, you're probably interested in at least one. The utility of the exposition is to show how learning the chapters for that can give you skills transferable to the other topics.

Now of these topics, blogging has the skimpiest coverage. This might reflect its realities. Most blogs afford you some graphics that you can alter, as a blogger. Like uploading images. But blogging is primarily textual.

The eBay section is far more extensive. For some of you, it may also be the most compelling. Since unlike the other modalities, this is about directly making money. To this ends, if you are interested in this section, read the descriptions about using images in your auctions. Of all the actions you can do as a seller, providing a good image of your item has been shown, on average, to yield higher bids. This also nicely ties into an earlier section of the book, that discusses using Photoshop to improve your digital photos.