Markup Languages Books

I was looking for a book that would introduce the overall concepts of the many XML technologies and give me a chance to play with them on my own. Although this book is not accompanied by a CD, I would prefer to enter the code myself and learn from making a mistake here and there. The concepts are very clearly described in concise and meaningful language in this book with a wealth of examples.

I give this book my highest recommendation. There is now a third edition out, but this one contains meaningful and approachable examples and should not be overlooked.

P.S. I got my copy of this book while attending a course being offered by the author. Aside from being well-written, Devan Shepherd is an excellent instructor. If you have the chance to take one of his courses, or attend one of his talks, don't miss the opportunity. He is entertaining and highly knowledgable.

Wonderful book if you have enough time to type all codes. No CD comes with this book, no source codes available.

I was looking for a book that would introduce XML and show me some real code examples of how to use it. I got that and more from this book. It is really well written - the author is more than a techies, he knows how to write and present complex concepts in understandable language.

There is a lot of material in this book. As the author points out, this is a 21-day study of XML, you can't cover every single aspect of every one of the many technologies that are part of the XML family of tools, but somehow this book manages to cover the most useful of waht is available.

There is something for everyone in this book. If you like to write Java, there are examples in Java, there are also examples in JavaScript, VBScript, VB, various databases and three or four different browsers. The parsers used include Saxon, Xalan, XT, MSXML, Apache, and all sorts of others. Best of all, as the author points out, if you can appreciate the relatively simple underlying constructs, it really doesn't matter what language you choose to write in. This is excellent since it helps to prove that XML is platform agnostic and can be programmed in almost any language and used in almost any toolset.

We have used some of the code out examples right out of the book to create a data-centric XML application for transaction exchange. The best part of this is that our business partners have different platforms and different programming environments and that doesn't matter at all, since we are all speaking XML when it comes to exchanging data. I learned how to do this by reading this book and working along with the examples provided.

My only regret with regard to this book is that it didn't include more than 21 days worth of material - I would have liked 42 days! This was such a good read, I found myself wanting more at the end of it.

I really got my money's-worth and more from this book, recommend it highly and can't wait to read whatever this author writes next. If you are looking for a very well-written survey of fundamental XML concepts, that covers a wide variety of the basic technologies, and touches various tools and platforms - try this book.

I usually don't say anything unless I have something nice to say, but I feel the positive reviews for this book are highly overrated. I'm quite stunned by how much copy the author of this book managed to churn out on what otherwise could have been a concise and to-the-point tutorial. Do I really need to read through 7 paragraphs on the decision-making process of the W3C before I can learn about XML schemas...? While some may find that kind of information thorough, I find it distracting. The reviewers who feel this book was well-written obviously don't think good writing should be compelling. The writing style, while organized and grammatically correct, is very very dry and repetitious. The tone reminds me of the more boring professors I had in college. There is no humor or person-to-person feel you get with writers like Laura Lemay. Even given the author's verbosity, the book (almost flagrantly) glosses over what I felt should have been the most important lesson: the XSD schema language, which most people agree to be the standard syntax for XML. If you want an efficient introduction to XML, you are better off running through the online tutorials offered on the w3schools website.

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.

I am director of user interface design at Audiopoint in Fairfax, Virginia -- a voice portal/voice technology company. I work mostly in human factors, not programming. This book is exactly what I've been looking for, because it gives, I feel, an excellent overview of the many kinds of systems, software, and hardware that are involved in the work I do. I agree with another reviewer, who said that the author clearly states that not all the examples will work in every case, for various reasons. The great plus for me is that, even though my training is not for the most part in technology, I could still understand the book. The author takes you, usually, from the very beginning, and gives you the big, simple picture, which is crucial to have fixed firmly in your mind. This book is making it much easier for me to understand our IT people and talk with techies, and visualize various products which I'd like to see our company launch. So I give this book top rating....

In The VoiceXML Handbook: Understanding And Building The Phone-Enabled Web, computer telephony expert Bob Edgar takes the reader through a step-by-step introduction through all the features of VoiceXML (including VoiceXML 2.0). Readers will learn about Graphical Web Browsing, HTML, and HTTP; Telecommunications; Computer Telephony; Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech; and XML. Also provided are a VoiceXML Tutorial and instructions on using Voice Browsers to crated Phone-Enabled Web Sites. The VoiceXML Handbook is an indispensable "how to" reference for anyone who needs to enhance their website with telephony-enabled technology and ability.

I can find more information on the internet on this subject than reading this book. In fact I turned to the internet while reading this book for answers to the questions this book failed to answer.

The book is a general overview of telephony application and a thin introduction to VoiceXML. It covers important matters in a very rapid and unprecise way. It contains even errors in the examples.

As a VoiceXML developer, I looked forward to this book. I was disappointed. Too much time was spent speculating on Version 2.0 and not enough time explaining Version 1.0. If you are looking to learn VoiceXML this is not the book.

This book has nothing to ofer. If you need some pointers on creating XSL style sheets then keep looking. There is no one practical example even for basic stuff like using variable and parameters for sorting and filtering. Most examples are of the form:
xsl:choose
xsl:when test='expr1' something
so if you whant to know how to build 'expr1' you need another book.
After spending the money and time I had to go to the www.w3c.org site and obtain the information.

I have been tinkering with XML in conjunction with Web Application Architecture over the past few years. This book has provided me with great examples of how to effectively implement XML solutions. In the very least, it has provided me great inspiration.

However, the author's unrelated Zen like comments and quotes strewn throughout the book bothered me.

I felt frustrated after the first 100 pages. The writer completely lost me after I struggled thru from page 50 or so! He seemed more interested in starting off each chapter with quotes by Chuang Ji and I don't know how the words in the quotes related to the topic, though only the quotes seemed interesting than the presentation of XSLT by the author. The book started off nicely in simple English and things were placed in perspective. Examples of the various nodes were shown in diagrams too, but that alone spanned over 25 pages! Chapter 3 became an overview of the real world example of XSLT works, the Chapter 4 was what shredded me to pieces. From then on, the writer didn't seem interested in helping the reader understand XSLT in clear simple words, instead used cryptic language with jargon. Mr. Fung just failed to help readers to nail down the cryptic symbols in an otherwise easy XSL transformation process! Elizabeth Castro did a real wonderful job in her book on XML in explaining XSLT and XPath.

Uniquely efficient presentation of the topic. A necessary and sufficient description of the 20% of XSLT that is used in 80% of applications. Perfect use of extended graphics for the tree handling basics in Part II, which by itself justifies purchase. This is one of a handful of books I've run across in 20 years that takes the reader to an intermediate level in almost no time. (Frank Pagan's slim book on Formal Definition of Programming Languages is another.) Consensus among colleagues is that the Fung book for jump-start plus the Michael Kay (2nd ed) book for reference is the XSLT library to have. One wishes this author would write on other topics.

This is the most beginner-friendly book on XSLT I am aware of. It is written in simple language devoid of XML infamous dreadful terminology. It implies neither the reader's significant Computer Science background, nor outstanding brain power. Explanations are as clear and simple as possible, with lots of illustrations. 1-star reviewers remarks about "cryptic writing" and "higher algebra" are egregiously misaddressed (though entertaining :).

This was a highly anticipated book when it came out because it covered some very hot topics; namely XML and Java. The book probably didn't quite live up to expectations but still provided a load of useful information about those topics.

Today you're probably better off with purchasing Lotus Notes and Domino 6 Programming Bible. Brian Benz and Rocky Oliver have done a great job with that book.

Don't waste your time or money with this book. I thought for sure with a title like this that it would skip all the what is Notes junk (like how to create views and forms, etc.) that all Notes books seem obligated to include. It is just a bunch of a filler in an otherwise useless book. I was looking forward to seeing some good JavaScript examples as it is used in common Notes situations. Well, no such luck. I struggled to find anything on something as basic and useful as the onChange event. This book is also not organized very well and is very confusing to learn follow. I am not sure the author has a good grasp of what he is writing. VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!!

I have read this book and found it useful. As a beginner on Domino Web Development this book has realy helped me in developing adequate skills in XML, Javascript and Java.

At page 682 of 836 Tamura introduces Chapter 22 with the phrase "What is XML?". At page 808 Chapter 27 begins with "What is a servlet?". Introducing fundamental terms of web technology near the end of the book should make it obvious that something with the concept of this book went fundamentally wrong. From a modern book on Domino Web programming I'd expect some information about how to implement a multitier architecture, scalability,maintainability , perfomance and security etc... You won't find anything useful about these things in the whole book. So what does Tamura consider important then? The book is a collection of reference sections, e.g. Notes Design elements (Chapter 2 to 6) found in numerous other books including the Designer online help in better quality. It is especially annoying, though, that he also explaines design elements that can be used in the notes client only but not in a webclient (e.g. layout regions). So why mention it at all here? It looks to me as if large amounts of this book have been inserted via copy and paste from other resources and other contexts. The html/Javascript reference sections do not contain any Domino specific information and can be found in other books in much better quality as well. The examples given (checking for blank fields etc)are extremely trivial and of no practical use. On the other hand Tamura dosnt tell the reader how to implement a nice looking navigation with DHTML views but only shows the ugly domino standard views and the performance critical view applet. XML: Tamura doesn't even mention the SAX or other modern APIs like JDOM. He just keeps talking about the rather old fasihioned DOM API. This is the worst book on domino development I've read so far and what makes it especially annoying from my point of view is the little care and effort with which it has been written. I think it's getting time to stand up against the black sheep in the business and name them explicitely. Hopefully this will enable other authors of better quality bring their books to the market.

This is the book that let me keep reading all the times. As a As400 RPG programmer and Notes Developer, I like to know what Domino/Notes can do and looking for the way of directions and the key elements to bring back-end database to the Internet thru Domino. I like this book because it gives me the directions and shows me the ways to apply Java,JavaScript and Servlet to the Domino Server either from inside Domino Agents or outside Domino.Especially, the topics for Notes Java classes really shows me the way to java coding in Notes Agents. Though it is not complete to cover all these area, it is definitely a excelent book to keep.The writing is good and author always get to the point right away for each topic. Maybe it is a waste of money for people who knows all these topics already but it is certainly a key door to the people like me who has been wondering how to get to these area for years. After reading all of it, I definitely know where to go and how to do to be a cutting edge programmer.

I really do not understand what the negative reviews are all about for this book. Even if you do not want to use office to generate your xml, you can still read over those chapters use the xml file created and learn HOW TO USE xml in flash which is what this book is about. I would probably not use office but I learned alot about processing the xml files that were created by the office program. Anyways this book took me from 0 knowledge about xml in flash to becoming fairly copmpetent in this subject. I highly recommend this book.

I had to purchase this book for a class I'm taking, and now it's 8 weeks into the semester, and I seriously got nothing at all from this. I'm having better luck looking for tutorials than reading this worthless book. Pictures are horrible, chapters drag on forever, and it's just plain not worth the 40 bucks i lost for this. Find a different book if you're just learning xml and flash, worst purchase in my college years!

I was actually hoping that it would be the perfect companion to the 'PHP for Flash' & 'Advanced PHP for Flash' series but it's more on the intergration between XML/Flash/MSOffice which in the web-designing industry is kinda/sorta useless since seeing that most of the technology used is PHP/ASP and MySQL.

The book is great for learning the basic functionality of XML with Flash but doesn't really give you the in-depth functions that are so widely used today.

Hopefully there will be an 'Advanced' series out soon.

Happy flashing!!!

How to use the XML in the Flash? This is one of the doubts most recurrent in lists and forums of quarrels. Who already tried work in Flash with XML created in one of programs of the Office Package definitively already lost the patience, much calm is necessary to reach the accurate node of the correct skill.

Sometimes we obtain alternatives, but almost always having to lose much time to carry through simple tasks. There the book "Foundation XML for Flash" of the Friends of ED publishing company enters, it presents simple solutions for who works with this type of archive, shows as to work with archives of the Word, Excel, Access besides instruct to work with Web services and much more.

It is a perfect book for who wants have complete reference regarding about the Flash and XML theme.

This clearly written and well-organized book provides an overview of XML and how to use XML structured data in a variety of Flash projects. Anyone who is interested in working with XML in Flash and would like to learn more about how to get started will benefit from the easy-to-follow examples and the range of topics that the author has chosen to cover. Beginning with an overview of XML the chapters quickly move on to show how Flash can use XML data. The content is addressed to both Flash designers and developers. While Flash developers may already be familiar with the uses and specifications for XML schemas, Xpath, and XSLT; many Flash designers will gain an appreciation for many of the complexities of XML, as well as insight into the Web Services model. Later chapters, for example, reveal how to use Microsoft Word, Excel and Access to create XML content.

As one who can manage Flash ActionScripting, but who does not have a strong programming background, I found the background into the various XML types to be quite helpful. The book does an excellent job of explaining entities, relationships, schemas and how to navigate an XML object in order to show the how to use XML content with Flash. I was particularly interested in the many applications for e-learning and found the blend of author's screenshots, code examples and main text to provide a nice balance of learning styles.

I learned a lot from this work and am sure that it would be useful to people who are already familiar with Flash and want to learn more about how to use XML with this program.

I guess there aren't different editions to this book. i can see why. I bought this book in 1999, thinking it would be great along with my javascript:The definitive guide and HTML:The complete reference, because i thought that DHTML would take me a step further and I would find something new and different than either HTML or Javascript, and I got a little bit of a sense of it, but but only every 100 pages or so. The book is divided into countless titled sections, in which you could skip entirely because what the author tries to tell you could be said in a lot less space. If you are absolutely brand new to any kind of web developer, or programmer, or anything other than just a computer end-user and you would like a first book ever to give you some kind of foundation to base your new endeavors into learning about computers from a programmer's viewpoint, this book may be for you. There is something to learn from it, but it definitely could tell a lot more. My copy is old and falling apart and I think today I'm just gonna throw it out. The little sense i got was that it's geared towards making you a creative thinker rather than just showing you how to code. I'll buy a CSS book next to replace this one.

This book covers a lot of nice material. I find myself referencing it all the time. Just about anything you'd want to do with javascript / HTML is here.

However, this book is not for the javascript novice. It also, is NOT a javascript tutorial by any means. In addition, a complaint I had is that the code isn't on a Cd, you have to download it from their site. Also, the routines they use to manipulate objects are wrapped in their javascript code and it appears what they are calling, is native javascript code. This was unnverving until I figured out you had to include a 30K include file. I also found some of the examples didn't run nicely on all browsers (not surprising with DHTML).

However, this book does cover a lot of ground and prepares the developer for the arduous task of creating DHTML pages. They do some very cool things with it and it is worth checking out.

There is on thing I like about this book. It got me to think about web sites as applications rather than online brochures, and to design interfaces based on user goals. Otherwise, it reminds me of a really bad college text book, like one that's only being used because the professor wrote it.

The first half of the book contains endless rambling with occasional insightful points. I found this especially annoying because I'm familiar enough with user-interface theory to know it can be presented in a very interesting way, but the authors manage to make it very boring, and to keep this up for a couple hundred pages.

They go on and on about how server connection waits destroy the user experience, and the importance of connecting with the server only when absolutely necessary. I waisted a lot of time trying to put this theory into practice, only to discovered that server connection delays are just one point to consider, along with download times, site manageabiliy, compatibility with older browsers, etc.

I was happy to reach the second half of the book, thinking that finally I would get to the meat and potatoes. I was very disappointed to find out that all the remaining chapters were based on using their javascript wrapper. When I went to their web site to download it, I spent some time trying out the sample applications. They took way to long to load, and crashed when I tried to use them (in MSIE 5, Win98). There was some comment about "hoping" the wrapper works. I downloaded the wrapper to try it, but it added too much overhead to consider using it. I gave up on the book at this point.

With a title like this, I was expecting a book full of cut'n'paste mission-tested cross-browser code - real meat. Not so, sadly. Most of it is way back down the knowledge chain, with around half the book being a resume of interfaces, CGI, DOM etc. This part is written as if being explained to a newbie web author - much more a history than a coder's reference (explanations of what ASP and SSI is, for example). Nice read, but mostly old news to anyone technical.

The second part of the book moves into the code. Sadly, I found the demos neither particularly useful (much is made of a DHTML fridge-magnet game) nor particularly reliable cross-browser. The acid test is this: have I used any of the code in real-life projects, and do I regularly pick up the book to glean good stuff? The answer to both is no. This is not an O'Reilly-style bible that ends up dog-eared from use. It's got some nice ideas in the cross-browser code libraries, but nothing you couldn't download yourself from siteexperts.com, bratta.com or the usual resources. Sorry, guys, you've put a lot of work into this, but you don't seem to know who your audience is.

This book is a good place to start for beginners or non-programmers. The coding examples are good only if you are going to use their wrapper code to build your DHTML. Being a programmer myself, I need to know how things work and just can't rely on someone else's code to magically do it for me. So, if you're looking for a quick way to get into DHTML this is the way to go. If you're looking for the "guts", this isn't the place.

I have this book as well. I bought it expecting it to be the end-all, be-all of XML books...it was the end-of-all my interest in learning xml for quite about a year. The book is VERY informative, at a very HIGH level. The tutorials are lackluster, and not as robust as the back of the book and the Table of Contents would lead you to believe. I looked at a couple of people who gave this book five stars, and all I could think is "they must be paid to write this stuff professionally!" I'm not saying that they do (for legal reasons among others), but it does make you wonder.... James L. Fuqua has given nothing but five stars for his three or four reviews, and ART SEDIGHI has a WHOPPINg 8 pages of 5 star reviews. Very detailed reviews mind you, but all five stars. Anybook I see that's been reviewed by him goes onto my 'this book is suspect' list immediately. I cannot believe that that man has read and bough 8 pages of technical books and find that they ALL warrant 5 stars....

In short. Don't buy this book. If you're looking for a good XML book I've heard <> is a good one (for advanced topics). I've ordered it but haven't gone through it yet, and <> is supposed to be a good starter. I've browsed through it but can't give a ringing endorsement yet. AllI can say is AVOID Charle's F. GoldFarb and anybook written by him (or at least the XML HANDBOOK, 5th EDITION. IT SUCKS!!!!)

I bought this book being completely convinced that it was a complete reference on the basic XML technologies along with an introduction to XML, XML's history and development and so on. It shows up to my disappointment, that the book is largely influenced by a number of corporations using XML to make money, and is therefore *not* focussed very much on the actual technologies.
On the back of the book one gets the impression that the book is indeed focussed on teaching the reader how to apply XML in ones own applications, and how XML can be used in various contexts in the future. The authors choose to treat the matter differently, and thereby fail to provide an actually useful reference book.
As it has been mentioned, XSL-FO only took up 6 pages, which for me was more than a severe disappointment - I don't feel like spending $60+ on the rest of this series which this book recommends its readers to do.
This book mainly functions as an introduction to XML on a corporate level, and thereafter it only accomplishes to refer to other books in the "CFG DXS" series. For myself, as a web-developer, I don't find this book very useful. It *is* interesting in some sections, and also somewhat entertaining at times, but this question rises: Does that justify reading over 1100 pages and spending more than $30 on this book? I would say no.

It took Charles Goldfarb, Paul Prescod and many others, sixty-seven chapters to explain all there is to know about XML and XML related technology. This book must be the most complete reference book when it comes to XML: any thing from history of XML in Chapter 1 to VoiceXML in Chapter 46 and everything in between. This book is filled, and each chapter is appropriately marked with, Introductory Discussions, Application Discussions, Tool Discussions, Case Studies and Friendly Tutorials.
The author has broken the book into 24 distinct parts; each part can be studies independently as they are very well contained with background information, case study and appropriate discussions. The first part is devoted to readers who are not XML savvy, followed by three chapters of the basic XML use: Three-tier applications, E-Commerce and Integration. It is very much amazing to me how the author packs three very important topics in to less than one hundred pages, and gets the point across. If the topic get s a bit complicated like the chapter on Integration with the Web (chapter 13), the author quickly switches to a Case Study chapter and shows the reader how things are done by example.
"Content is King". Reading this phrase at the beginning of Part 5 tells you that Goldfarb knows what he is talking about, because content IS king. Content Management must be one of the best parts of this book. A case study followed by a chapter on content systems (Chapter 16) and a chapter on what the key components of a Content Management is (chapter 17) really wheels the context in and the reader gets a very good understanding of what this growing field is all about. "Content is King". Content Acquisition, which is covered in Part 10, is another very well covered set of topics. Being is a VERY complicated topic, the authors (guest authors and experts who helped with writing this section) start off by explaining what syndicators and subscribers are: Content providers and content receivers. ICE, a new protocol for content delivery created by the ICE Authoring Group is introduced and used thru out the chapter. The authors add:

"The ICE protocol defines a model for the ongoing management of syndication relationships, including the roles and responsibilities of syndicators and subscribers"

Using ICE:
- The syndicators can describe business rules
- The syndicators can create and manage catalogs of subscription offers
- A common format - XML, is used to exchange data between the syndicators and subscribers.
- Various delivery modes such as push or pull and frequency of delivery can be indicated by the subscribers
- The subscribers determine if content can be updated in delta format or otherwise
- The content can be received from and sent to many locations and repository types.

The authors show the power of the tool and how it can benefit the end user and their application content management needs.

"... If Web Services really is a revolution, it may be the first in history to be led by the parties in power."

Web Services are the next set of topics covered in this book and two parts (13 and 14) are devoted to Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture. The author starts by giving the reason and the background of where Web Services came from and why they are here. (This is very common for this author as he explains every XML technology first and gives the reason why it's here) The good thing about this section is that Web Services have yet to be proven and the author conveys that message well:

"Web services is a very far-reaching and ambitious vision, with implications for all Web users and, if the goals are achieved, for much of the economy as well."

The two big players in the Web Services world, mainly IBM and Microsoft helped in writing these two parts. It is very interesting to see that for the first time in a very long time, these two rivals see eye-to-eye about a technology such as Web services. A discussion of UDDI, the directory for discovering Web Services, WSDL, the Web Services Description Language, and SOAP are given. The icing on the cake is chapter 41 where experts from IBM talk about Service deployment and outlines the steps that need to be taken to do such task. The application that they deploy is very much useless, but the steps taken to deploy are priceless as they are very concise and clear. Service Oriented Architecture, their vision, methodology and benefits are given in chapter 42. The two main architectural patterns that are used today: service-centric design and the rich-client design are explained and are used as the groundwork to explain why SOA is a better approach to either of the two.

Jumping to the last few parts of the book where the author[s] has added tutorials of all the major topics that were discussed in the text. XML Basics, Namespaces, DTD are just the beginning of some of the tutorials that added towards the end of this book. Whole parts are devoted to XPath, XSLT and XSL. XPointer also gets its own section with a chapter devoted to XLink. The great thing about these tutorials are that they are self contained and can be read independently of any other chapter of the book. They are quick study guides when you need them.


C. Goldfarb, Paul Prescod and many experts that were involved in putting XML Handbook together did a great job in doing so. This book truly contains everything one needs to know about XML and XML technologies.

I read the entire book and some parts of it twice. It is perhaps the most organized book that I have ever read. It starts simple and moves to the complex. It is not a programmer's cookbook. It is an explanatory text and that is all that it claims to be. If you know little of XML this is an excellent place to start. If you think you know a lot about XML you will probably find much that you did not know in its 1200 pages.

If you want to immediately start writing code that uses XML, then you need another book. This book has many good examples of code fragments designed to teach specific concepts. It does not try to build complete applications. It does have a section to refer you to other books that do lead you through complete projects. The author even maintains a web site listing "All the XML Books in Print" at http://www.xmlbooks.com.

Any review takes on much from the perspective of the reviewer. I am not connected with the author or the publisher or anyone else connected with this book. I am an amateur programmer who writes educational software as a hobby. My real job is as mayor of a city. Although I have marked up student responses and stored XML segments in a relational database, I have never used the real power of XML. From this book and the more code-oriented books that I have ordered (from the author's recommended list) I think I will soon be able to use XML even for my simple uses.

I have never disliked a technical book more than this one. The table of contents looks great - lots of coverage of everything having to do with XML. The content though, is very disappointing. For the most part, every topic is covered at a very high level and the author's biases are very generously woven throughout. I found several cases of overstatements and omissions of accurate information. (Perhaps it is already out of date?)

This book might be good for someone trying to get a high level view of all that XML is capable of infiltrating. For anyone that wants any real technical content, this will be a big disappointment.

I am a first year student at Oklahoma State University and had been struggling with some of the CSS and web-design code. I found this book in my school;s bookstore and tried it. I immediately understood about 98% of it. the other 2%, I haven't leanred from my professor yet. The very helpful thing, was that they would show you a picture of a finished web page and instead of saying "try to make this" without much info like my other books, this one show's you the code. Every letter. My Site is developing phenominally because of a large part to this reference. The only reason it's not 5, is because I haven't learned some of the stuff in the back chapters yet.

I know HTML pretty well but CSS not at all. I figured I'd get this book to teach myself CSS and since it had HTML in the title I thought it would teach the integration of both to create websites.

I still don't know much about CSS after reading this book. I know some new terms but I've no idea how to implement them, never mind create a website using CSS.

The book does give you a general outline of what CSS can do but other than that it didn't suit my needs at all.

Besides all that, I found the book poorly laid out and rather boring to read.

This book is perfect for my needs. I have a background in graphic design, and have created some web sites in Adobe GoLive. GoLive writes the code for you, so you don't need to know how to do it "by hand." But now the newest version of GoLive is based on CSS, so although I had been dabbling in it, I need to learn a lot more. Plus, sometimes you need to look into the code to get something to work or to understand what is happening.

GoLive itself does not include a manual, and the online help files are extremely lame. Many other books and online articles are either too basic (especially since GoLive writes the code it for you) or so technical that I can't grasp what they are talking about.

This book falls right in the middle. It covers the basics of HTML, so I can understand what I am looking at in GoLive code, but does not go into a lot more detail than I have time for. Then it moves on to CSS, and how it is applied to the web page. Having worked my way through about 2/3 of the book, I finally feel like I am beginning to really grasp the basics of how it works, and this knowledge has greatly increased my ability to work with the new GoLive version.

So who is this book for? Maybe not a total newbie, but for someone who knows enough to get by, but wants to learn more and really begin to get a solid grasp of the fundamentals. There must be many other graphic designers out there making the transition to the web. They probably understand the idea of styles, since that is how page layout software works, but are new to the coding part. While this book is not specifically addressed to that audience, I recommend it as a place for those people to start.

This booked helped me with a lot of my codes that I have been trying to find, but after that it seemed to be a dead end. It doesn't describe things as well as it could, but it's still understandable. There are some points, though, that I became completely lost in what I was supposed to do to alter the code to my liking, which makes it severely frustrating at times. I am currently looking through other books (mostly CSS, which I agree that this book needs more of) to better fit my needs, but I'll definitely keep this on hand because it seems to be a great reference for times that you need a code that you can't find anywhere else. ^-^

Wether or not you find this book useful really depends on who you are. If you are absolutely new to HTML, and maybe even to computers, you are better off elsewhere. This is not so much because the authors assume you have mastered a lot of things already, but rather because they assume you have a certain number of reflexes and thinking habits which make things intuitive for people used to working with computers, but take a little explaining to newcomers.

If you know a bit about HTML already though, not much, mind you, just what a body and head are, for instance, then you will appreciate the lean, no-nonsense approach of this book. It goes straight to the point, in a clear, and convincing manner without preaching or beating around the bush.

I'm not sure this book ever had "all the ingredients you need to create 5-star web pages". This book is getting old now, and only covers basic HTML, so it's certainly lacking something in today's world of JavaScript, Flash, DHTML and CSS.

What it does have, and what keeps me from discarding it in favour of newer and more comprehensive HTML and page-design guides is its sensible advice on web site design. It's one of the few books with "web" and "design" in the title which actually covers web site design issues! It urges readers to think in terms of simple sites with useful content, and consider how the information might be used by people from all over the world as well as the usual issues of download speed and browser compatibility. If you follow its advice you might actually get a few more customers from outside the USA.

Probably not worth buying these days, but borrow it from a friend or check it out of the library if you do see it

If you're new to HTML, don't buy this book. Instead, buy "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating an HTML Web Page" by Paul McFedries. If you're familiar with HTML and are looking for something new under the sun, don't buy this book either. I don't have any recommendations for that type of book as I am still searching.

This book boasted that it was for everyone from beginner to advanced. I found this to be completely untrue. I have a limited knowledge of html and was totally unimpressed. The CD also claims to have hundreds of templates. I found the templates boring.

I'm not a web developer or designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do a lot of HTML page development and maintenance, with some light javascript programming thrown in on my own web site. I started in January 2000 with an account for a personal page, Notepad.exe and a quick reference card. I learned basic HTML in the process, but also created an eyesore. As my technical skills evolved the ugliness of my creation remained the same. I swallowed my pride and got this book. It was one of the best purchases I ever made.

For a total beginner this is a good first book because it steps you through creating your first page, then adding features and using advanced HTML as you progress. For someone who is already proficient with HTML and has developed a few pages, you may find something useful in the advanced techniques and will certainly receive an education in good web page design. Some of the highlights of the authors' approach to design are in the examples. The accompanying CD ROM has every example in HTML format so you can see how they will display in your particular browser brand and version, and you can look at the code and play with it to see how your changes will display. This alone is a real time saver, and it makes this book all the more useful.

If you are a technical writer the examples for web pages that provide how-to procedures, troubleshooting procedures, on-line lessons and survey forms reflect good page design and the example files on the CD ROM can be immediately used as templates.

The only thing that detracts from this book is that it's woefully out of date. Some of the tools provided on the CD ROM are ancient, as are the discussions on various desktop operating systems. For example, Windows 95 was not even on the market when this book went to press and the authors' discussion on network issues were educated guesses. Now the network facilities built into desktop operating systems are so transparent that this section of the book can be safely ignored. However, we also live in a world where HTML has evolved to version 4, cascading style sheets are used on many sites (not to mention Macromedia Flash, Active Server Pages, more sophisticated java and javascript, etc.), rendering a lot of the technical aspects of this book quaint. On the other hand, that might not be such a bad thing since the best web pages are simple and more focused on design instead of a bunch of technical razzle-dazzle. But, I would love to see this book updated to reflect contemporary tools and techniques for web page design because I like the way the authors' impart their knowledge. This book would make an excellent text for a web design 101 class, and is one of the best for those of us who play around with this stuff. I'm subtracting a star because the book sorely needs to be updated, but am still giving it my highest recommendation.

This book is an excellent choice for individuals hell-bent on implementing a website. It details the elements of website creation in a clear, cookbook fashion. Those looking for advice or information on the process one goes through in successfully developing and implementing an e-commerce website need to look elsewhere. Anyone wishing further information regarding this book, or small business websites in particular, should feel free to email me at Robert@rpdesign.com - Robert Davidson

This book suffers badly from two problems: multiple authors and padding. Padding makes some of the sections too "chatty", while paradoxically failing in providing a good explanation of the material. Multiple authors makes the quality of the content sections very variable. At best they are adequate, at worst appauling.

Take the XML Schema chapter. Its painful to read, with complex examples badly explained and a more or less random list of individual features explained not very well. Understanding XML Schema by reading this chapter is like learning a foreign language by reading a dictionary.

There are FAR better choices for XML coverage, such as the OReilly series.

In the world of computer publishing, two brands stand out when you're talking compendiums. Wrox's big red Professional series and SAMS Unleashed in their now familiar orange. Usually hit and miss affairs, 90% of the people who buy this type of book need to dip in and out of it for bits of information. However it's often the case that the quality of the text across its entire length varies quite a bit. Happily, XML and Web Services Unleashed doesn't suffer from this, with its nine author crew well edited to form a unison chorus rather than a disjointed set of voices as can sometimes be the case.

Its four sections cover most of the current undertakings in XML as well as laying a solid reference for newcomers and those who need a quick refresher. Part 1 sets the scene, covering XML and its immediate counterparts, DTDs and Schemas. We also find its search and link associates XPath, XLink and XPointer covered precisely and well in the following chapter. The approach is pretty standard but written well and information is easy to locate.

The main part of the book is devoted to building XML-based Applications in Java should the need for non-XML code arise. Logically, this section starts by dealing with XML documents on their own and then how to marry XML into your own applications. The SAX and DOM APIs are covered, but for .NET users, the XML Streaming API is missing. XSL coverage is good but short, covering both XSLT and XSL-FO in 60 pages. Examples of their use continue to appear for several more chapters, but would it have been too much to turn this one chapter into two? Arguably the most important chapter in the section - Integrating XML with Databases - takes a very practical view but again is Java only. .NET users need to wait another seven chapters before a section on ADO.NET can be found hidden in the chapter on XML in Visual Studio .NET

Skipping past chapters on SVG, XHTML and Content Management, we come to the highlight of the book - three chapters on web services. However, rather than teach us how to build them, the authors have elected to show us how they work, justifying first the architecture of the web services platform and then how SOAP, WSDL and UDDI tie into that structure. It's a great read and brimming with useful information, but best of all is that it gets you, as a programmer, thinking outside of the box.

Indeed, Section 3 is all about giving you a better appreciation of how XML works and can be applied in today's industries. It covers some of the standards used in the vertical markets of today and how those standards are submitted and ratified, looking in detail at XML in E-Business. Reading this section sequentially, you really do get an appreciation of the scope and size of the efforts being made by XML developers across the world. Finally, Section 4 looks at the nascent efforts of the semantic web community, the justification for their existence and what they have managed so far.

I said earlier that the editing of this book was good, but if there is a flaw, it's the choice of what to cover in the book. This particular tome tries to cover the past and the future of XML in addition to its present without fully covering any of the three. It also leans towards Java users - .NET and COM heads beware. Beyond the programming chapters though, this is as thorough an expose of XML in its many guises as you're likely to find and it's a good one too. But don't forget to check the table of contents before you buy it.This is XML Unleashed, not XML and Web Services Unleashed. A classic case of marketing misinformation, if ever there was one.

Not a bad book. Especially if you want to learn some tricks to make for bigger size. For example, chapter 4 XML Schemas consists of 61 pages. 17 of them are REDUNDUND repetitions (I do not count here those that make sense) of the same schema and xml source file. The schema, about 3 pages, placed in the beginning of the chapter. Than they change an attribute in one element and "illustrate" this repeating all 3 pages.
Systematically an element that with no problem fits in one row spans, nevertheless, two.
There are some other useful tricks. Find yourself. It's not a bad book.

Just about any other book on the subject would have to better than this book. The poor writing turns simple concepts into puzzles. Although I was deeply interested in the subject matter, this book read like a college text book on a subject I was forced to take. I liked the concise code examples, but then I would cringe at the author's explanation of the code. Also to be fair, some portions of the book are actually written clearly. It is very evident that the book was put together by more than one person. Some of the good sections are quite interesting; while other sections are quite comical in a grammatical sense. Furthermore, as a science student, my English is not great. Therefore, it takes a real disaster for me to notice the writing quality.

While very thorough, this book is almost as dry to read as the W3 specifications on which the technology is based. Incredibly complex examples are lightly touched on leaving you the reader sifting through (in some cases) pages of listings trying to find the differences between various versions. No effort is made to help steer the user through the examples. While this is a good reference for those with a firm grasp of concepts I think it could be immeasurably better written. Also, huge leaps are being made without examples.

3 stars for thouroughness of content, 2 deducted for being not in the least bit user-friendly.