Markup Languages Books

I'm a web professional, and I must rate this book as *very* inadequate!! One wonders why "button" or "checkbox" is nowhere in the index to find. Or why "target" is not mentioned at all. If a novice were to use this book he NEVER would discover that a graphics could serve as a hyperlink. IT JUST ISN'T IN THERE! This book is very anoying. I have never bought a book so unfit for it's stated purpose: a guick concise html reference. A book like this should lead you to the commands you need. If one knew html in and out a reference book wouldn't be needed in the first place

I have been a web professional since '94, and I love this book. It is simply a list of all the HTML, no gibberish, no trying to teach me what good design is (I already know that!).

It's the flat head screwdriver of any proffesionals toolbox, simple, but indespensible.

The layout of the book is excellent. I did find some errors (even with my very limited knowledge of the subject).
I'd like to have seen another section in the book that would have expanded the examples and described some of the options for the commands in greater detail.
I realize that the book is a reference book rather than an HTML tutorial, but it's layed out so nicely I think just a little more information would really make the book a "10"!

This book gives a complete, easy-to-understand, reference to EVERY HTML command. The book is organized alphabetically by command, with quicktables referencing all commands relevent to different topics. It also indicates the compliance of each command to Netscape, Internet Explorer, Mosaic/XMosaic, HTML 2, and HTML 3.2.

This book is very comprehensive and I liked the fact that it was easy to tell which tags were compliant with which browsers, but it's impossible to find anything because every tag and every tag attribute has it's own listing, and if you look up a tag you then have to turn to 10 different pages to read about the attributes for the tag. It takes FOREVER to find anything in this "quick reference" book

This is a useful book for analysts and programmers who are coming from an Entity Relationship Modeling background - and who need to understand the theory and mechanics of developing XML Schemas for applications.

You can expand relation model whatever you like, as long as you have implementation support. Does not see much value of his model, and the book does a poor job presenting the idea.

The book is poorly organized. If one does not know the context of the topic ahead, it would be very hard to follow. The book did not even mention where to download, how to use its companion modeling tool. The reader has to figure that out.

There are a lot of theoretical sections that I don't see necessity to be empasized or even presented.

The author conveyed the idea of AOM (Asset Oriented Modeling), but I am still clueless about the value of this AOM modeling. I am not convinced to adopt this modeling methodology to solve a real world problem. To me, it is just another proprietary practice of modeling, with no or very little pratical value. The material is very difficult to be tied to technical implementation, thus it is only good on paper.

I don't understand why there are so many good comments about this book. But after going through the book briefly, I realized it is a waste of time and money.

This is the best book out there on XML. If you want an intro to XML get Mark Johnson's article "XML for the Absolute Beginner." If you want to go in depth, this is the place to go.

Unlike the hundreds of other books that just describe what XML and XML Schema are, Daum's book gets deeply into why it is the way it is, by exploring how it fits in with conceptual modeling and how you would fit it into a complex environment.

He introduces a beguiling simple example domain (jazz musicians) which he revisits over and over again throughout the book. Through this simple example he works out subtle differences in different approaches to modeling, to schema construction, to constaint definition and modeling and finally how would you map this back to Object or Relational technology.

He introduces Asset Oriented Modeling, which is a form of conceptual modeling more attuned to XML schema model creation. His treatement of polymorphism in Schema, and techniques for evolving schema are as good as I've seen anywhere.

Excellent treatment of constraints, both conceptually as well as practical approaches to realizing the constraints in XPath or XSLT. These were worth the price of the book by themselves.

It's probably too late, but if you get no other book on XML and XML Schemas, this is the one to get.

I just finished reading "Modeling business Objects with XML Schema" for the second time. It is the most useful book on XML modeling that I have read. After defining the ERM and UML modeling techniques, the author introduces AOM (Asset-Oriented Modeling) in a simple and thorough way. The book emphasizes on the best practices for modeling heterogeneous and multi-namespace systems. It emphasizes on the compatibility of the XML Schema with RDF and SQL. The reuse and composition of XML Schemata constitute the main focus of the book. The example given in the book is processed through several iterations and improvements, with complete and clear explanations for improving the XML code. The KLEEN Modeler tool (http://www.aomodeling.org/tools.htm) is used to create the conceptual models throughout the book. Mapping the XML Schema code into SQL, and normalization of the XSD code is clearly defined. The XML metalanguage itself, is concisely and efficiently covered in the book. I highly recommend this book; you learn a lot from this book.

This book does not really explain HOW to develop SOAP applications. Instead, it just spends page after page describing all the different technologies competing in the SOAP and web services arena. Upon completing reading this book, I had a much better understanding of what was happening in the chaotic development of SOAP, but I would not be able to develop anything using SOAP. This seems to be typical of this author's other books. I've read three of Brogden's books and they all tend to get bogged down in specification versions, generic overviews of APIs, and other occassionally interesting but not usually very useful informaiton. Then he doesn't take the time to carefully explain HOW to use the technologies in a practical way. This will be my last Brogden book.

As a developer, I've read several titles on SOAP and web-services - and found most to be too 'architectural' (view from the top - v. little hands-on, detailed understanding). While SOAs and web services architecture are all fascinating - when one gets down to the development - one needs a thorough understanding of SOAP - its various implementations - and current stumbling points.
This book provides all of the above for 'java' soap (it was written prior to Axis release - but still contains enough useful information). For .NET soap - I use OReilly's Programming .NET web services - which is also excellent. I have no complaints about this book - I got what I needed from a developer's perspective and also some from an architectural perspective (for e.g. - the author illustrates how using JMS with SOAP provides a truly resilient and flexible SOA).

While I believe the review by corporateprogrammer below was right on, my criteria for judging a useful book is rather different than his in that if I find a single chapter of unique use in a book I will often buy it and find it useful. My time is worth more than the price of this book and it definately saved me several hours of working some things out for myself.

While I would never recommend this as a first book about SOAP, I found Chapter 8 very useful and also enjoyed Chapters 4, 5, 12, and 13. In my judgement Chapter 8 (SOAP over JMS and SOAP over Javaspaces) alone justified the purchase.

My judgement is that this book belongs on the bookshelf of every programmer who aspires to become a Web Services expert.

It's a struggle to penetrate this book. I got halfway through a few times and forgot what SOAP was, or forgot why I wanted to know; that's dull stuff. The book suffers from poor editorial direction, uninspired technical writing and a catch-all approach to content.

For starters, the title is misleading. There's enough coverage of supporting, overlapping, and competing technologies -- including a whole chapter on .NET's "position" in the market -- that the book primarily feels like a technology overview. I counted about 40 XML/SOAP listings ("snooped sessions") in the main text. Some of them are 1-2 pages long; I'm supposed to want to read them? No line numbers, no boldface: what am I supposed to learn? How does this relate to programming SOAP? The author often doesn't say.

I also counted 80 or so hyperlinks in the main text. Some are duplicates, but most send you off to the site for some spec or a tool or a SOAP-crazy vendor. It feels pointless to read the book without a browser open and waiting. In particular, the section on deploying a SOAP-ready server gives links to instructions when it should explain; if you aren't sure how to set up a server, these instructions won't help, because each only tells you how to set up one piece of the puzzle.

The author doesn't seem engaged with the subject, which makes some chapters tough reading. He's going through the motions, even diligently, but why? Sme of his client-server protocol transcripts aren't inherently meaningful but he leaves them that way. Then there are pages of term definitions for XML and SOAP; did he try to digest anything for the reader's benefit? The Java stuff doesn't even start until p. 81.

SOAP is formative and there's too much going on to track it all; ok. It's the author's to maintain interest and focus, and avoid regurgitating information. The author probably shouldn't say that SOAP isn't likely to replace anything else. Why, then, would we buy this book? For the XML anatomy lesson?

There's a CD-ROM in the back, but I couldn't get myself to bother playing with it.

This book started good with a description of the SOAP protocol and entry-level programming discussion with examples for the Apache SOAP API. However by page 100 (out of 377), the book quickly loses its technical value.

After introducing extremely basic uses of SOAP (passing only primitives to methods/functions that take only primitives as arguments), instead of jumping into more complex SOAP issues (different kinds of API's available like GLUE or IdooXoap with different call paradigms) or more complex examples (I would've liked a more concrete examples of using Apache SOAP with complex, nested datatypes or paradigms for programmatic security using UDDI as an case study) it instead jumps into a myriad of Java technologies which can be trivially adapted to utilize SOAP as an RPC transport protocol.

Basically any Java technology that does RPC or can transfer a chunk of text can be "adapted" to use SOAP. The author gives considerable coverage of orthogonal Java technologies like JavaSpaces, JMS, and JavaMail which are interesting, but don't actually demonstrate any additional complex uses of SOAP. If the book taught details of using complex SOAP API's in a transport independent way, I could pick up a separate book on JMS, JavaMail, etc... and quickly get started writing real-world apps.

Instead, I get coverage of the same trivial SOAP topics over and over again. While they are supposed to be in "different environments," the actual core code is still the same, as are the SOAP-based issues and pitfalls that are left unspoken.

This book would only be suitable to someone was a total beginner in both the Java AND SOAP worlds. If you have any significant knowledge of one of these two topics, you'd likely find more than 60% of the book to be of little value.

I still might considering keeping the book as a lightweight summary of various Java technologies, since the author does write in a clear and understandable way. He has a good presentation style and his prose is very readable. However, I cannot justify keeping a book of this cost that has only 100 pages of hardcore content in it.

Unfortunately, this book is really just another HTML book with a new cover and an "X" at the beginning.

It has some valid stuff in it, but like so many computer books aimed at a non-technical audience, it is basically sold by weight not by content. It seeks to fill pages with lots and lots of airy stuff. It really could be rendered down to something a quarter the size, but then who would buy such a humble-looking tome.

One thing I thought was particularly bad was that it had quite a lot of stuff that was not even valid XHTML. For example, the book encourages you to use things which do not validate with the W3C's specification. XHTML isn't ubiquitous yet so there may have to be some compromises, but a book like this should start from a position of purity and demonstrate valid work-arounds. It should not be adding stuff from exactly the old versions of hacked HTML which XHTML is seeking to make obsolete.

If you want to learn HTML, you could buy this book. If you want to know XHTML, try something else with viewer pages.

I was a bit surprised to find this book on sale, since it was only a year old and seemed to cover material that remains relevant.

I discovered why soon after, and was glad I hadn't paid the full cover price. While Que Special Edition: Using XHTML by Molly E. Holzschlag contains almost everything I wanted to know about XHTML at this point (i.e. how to add the slashes and quotes in the right places), it's nearly 1000 pages, or at least 700 pages too long.

The book:

* is poorly organized.

* contains numerous typos and other mistakes (in both body text and, more unforgivably, in code examples).

* includes several entire chapters that actively flout the very standards XHTML is supposed to enforce.

* features randomly-interspersed chapters from other authors that are poorly integrated with Holzschlag's main text (although they are generally better written than her material).

* often mentions an accompanying CD-ROM that isn't included with the Special Edition, since that's for more-special Premium Editions.

* could easily have been edited down by at least 30% by simply trimming Holzschlag's bloated sentence constructions and repetitive code examples.

Ms. Holzschlag knows what she's talking about, for the most part. The problem is the way she talks about it. To be fair, publishing pressures meant that this new book is really a poorly-updated revision of her HTML 4 book, which itself probably comprises cobbled-together sections of her previous work.

In a way, though, the existence of Using XHTML is encouraging -- I could quite possibly have written a more useful book on the topic myself, and could certainly have helped edit the existing one into a much better (and shorter!) document. Pity that computer books are so often sold by bulk, not quality.

I admit I judged the book by the cover and thought it would focus solely on XHTML. Not so. There are references to SMIL, multimedia, visual design, style sheets, and scripting.

Author Molly E. Holzschlag explains, "The best way to read the book will be determined by you!" Each chapter stands alone. It is organized to be a resource for you to pick and choose what you need. Special Edition Using XHTML begins with the basics of what is XHTML and how it came to be. Moving deeper into the book, Holzschlag guides you from creating Web pages with XHTML to adding scripts and style to XHTML documents.

Books, especially those of a technical nature, written with a personal touch are easier to read and understand. Here, Holzschlag hits the bullseye.

Although the book qualifies as a genuine doorstop with 900 plus pages, you'll find it easy to use. Holzschlag makes sure she covers everything. While reading a section about formatting XHTML, I briefly disagreed with a statement. Less than a page later, she explained why the statement is not entirely true.

She is honest in her commentary about HTML and design issues. If you want to know why you should bother moving from HTML to XHTML, she tells you. Or why HTML is still going strong and why XHTML has not killed it. Yep, it's there, too.

She provides details on XHTML modularization and DTDs (Document Type Definition). There are plenty of examples, screen shots, and step-by-step instructions to help you. If you're like me and forget a few things about writing code, she is there to gently refreshen your memory. Finding specific topics is not a chore with the book's thorough index as well as its single page of the table of contents next to the cover of the book.

This book targets intermediate readers, but readers who are learning HTML will be able to use this book. Holzschlag covers all the basics of file naming conventions, clean coding, and wireless programming to name a few. In other words, she gives you much more than you ask for when you pick up this book. Special Edition Using XHTML is a welcome addition to a budding Web development library.

A search-and-replace edition of "Special Edition Using HTML," this book is rife with grammar errors, typos, and content that has nothing to do with XHTML (approx. half of the book).

If I were to guess at an audience, it would be web designers with a vague curiosity about what makes a web page go.

Clearly NOT destined to be a classic tome on the subject.

This is an outstanding book on XHTML. It provide simply, easy-to-understand, in depth, and extremely powerful instruction on XHTML. There are plenty of excellent examples, which are clearly explained. It not only shows how, but explains why, all in a extremely clear, understandable and interesting manner.

The book explains the basics, and is great for a beginner, but also deals with integrating XHTML with some other very useful technology, including CSS, XML, XSL, JavaScript, Macromedia Flash, WML and alternative devices (Cell Phones, PDAs, Mobile Computers, Smart Pagers and Phones, etc.), SMIL, downloadable and streaming multimedia (including Real), SVG, and more. It also has useful advice for effective page design, color concepts, graphics, including optimization, splicing, and covers tools from companies like Adobe (PhotoShop, Illustrator, ImageReady, LiveMotion, etc) Corel (CorelDRAW, PHOTO-PAINT), Microsoft, ULEAD, Jasc, and Macromedia. I can't say enough good things about it.

Although the book was helpful in providing information which can be universally used, it was published in 1999, and since new tools have been developed since then and therefore are not included in the book, its practical use is limited.

This book really should have been titled 'Creating your first web page with Microsoft FrontPage Express', emphasizing that the book isn't of much use if you're a Mac or Linux user. I also have a minor quibble that the book implies that you need to install FrontPage Express from the Windows 98 CD - obviously you only need an Internet Explorer CD or download. These points notwithstanding, this is a very good introduction that really will help you design your own webpage. Once you've done that you can then go and learn a bit of HTML, beginning with something like Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 10 minutes, or HTML 4 Made Simple (a British book, see amazon.co.uk website) rather than the mite disappointing CliffsNotes Creating Webpages with HTML.

This is the best 115 pages that I've read! I didn't have the time to read a 500 page book on creating web pages with HTML 4 or Frontpage 2000. So I bought this book because I could do the exercises in it quickly and it was focused on tools that I already had with Windows98: Microsoft FrontPage Express, Personal Web Server, and the Web Publishing Wizard. After setting up these tools, you'll be off and running learning about text placement, backgrounds, graphics, multimedia, hyperlinks, and tables for an "Orchid Club" home page. And guess what, IT'S FUN, FAST AND EASY. By following the step by step instructions, you'll understand the basic concepts of creating a web page of your own. This book will take you from creating a home page in FrontPage Express, all the way to publishing your page on a Web Server. But beware: you will only be building a very basic web page. This book doesn't attempt to teach detailed HTML, the language behind all web pages. But you can learn HTML from various Internet sites or other books if you are interested. When you are done with this book, you'll have enough knowledge to build your own personal home page and put it on the Internet for everyone to see. From here, you could learn HTML to enhance your web page, or use products like Microsoft FrontPage 2000 to design a more sophisticated web site.

Don't waste your money on this book unless you already have, and want to use, FrontPage Express - a program that I could not find anywhere to download. Note that the date the book was published is 1999, which makes it 6 or 7 years old - exceedingly old in cyber terms! I don't know why they are ordering more to sell. No one appears to have anything to say about the book since 2000. Get something newer!

I learned alot from this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who was interested in web design and development.

I bought this book because I wanted to learn CSS and, apart from this being the only book in my local store that covered CSS, I thought learning HTML and XHTML would be a bonus. The fact that the book covers the whole lot is a very good idea, the execution, however, leaves much to be desired.

I am currently up to page 88, so this is not a review of the entire book, but I felt so strongly about warning people I had to write now. I am already looking on Amazon for alternatives.

1. Errors: There are errors in the text and the images, some more serious than others, that can leave you confused and scrambling around various resources for answers.

2. The visual style is the only saving grace behind this book, because it's only through the pictures that I can understand what's going on. The copy itself is like reading a bad technical manual.

4. The approach seems utterly uncohesive and at no point do you actually feel you're progressing towards building anything. Each page reads as if they took their appendices and simply explained them, rather than building up a more profound understanding of what is essentially learning a new language.

This series of books has some very good consumer feedback, and I am sure other titles are very good, because the idea behind the format is essentially a sound one, but it really looks as if a minimum of thought and care went into producing this one and I cannot recommend it to anyone.

I am VERY disappointed with this book. It was the required reading for a barnesandnoble.com online class, so I mistakenly figured it would be a good book.

I can handle all the typos and grammatical errors, for example;
"...how to add dynamic content o your Web page..."
"To perform tasks in t his book,..."
"Changing the color and font enables you to emphasize important information or to make your Web pages more aesthetically pleasing or more readability."

However, in many instances, the code in the examples has errors too! I don't know how anyone who is trying to learn HTML, CSS, or XHTML without prior knowledge could learn from this book.

That being said, I do like the layout of the book and the numerous examples and pictures. If the editing department had done their job, this might actually be a good book.

This book has good information, but is poorly organized. The "lessons" are not organized in a logical way.
Plus, the text itself has grammatical errors and the illustrations show Web sites with laughably bad errors. For instance, "We takes the risk out of buying . . ." And "Directors Marketinging Book."

If you're customizing Miva Merchant or developing other Mivascripts, you'll find this book essential. The writing is clear, thetext is well-indexed and full of examples. My only complaint is thatmany of the examples are simplified - perhaps to help us all getstarted...

I was thankful to find a Miva script resource in print. However, as I am interested in the security aspects of the language, I had hoped to read more in depth about macros. This book is a better desktop language reference than real world application development learn-by-example concept guide. This book is a quick read, will help you get your head around the basics of Miva scripting, but be aware of the author's free use of macros in script examples.

Look, I have a BS in Computer Science. I see so many manuals that it would make your head swim. This book ranks up with the worst of the worst. It is a reference, NOT a guide. If you already know Miva, great, buy the book. If you are just beginning, keep searching because this book does nothing, absolutely ZIP in helping you create, maintain an ecommerce website.

The book was complete complete and I did not see any mistakes but it was mainly just a nicer printed version of the manual. There were some scripts and explanaitions but not much. If you want a bound and printed reference it is good, otherwise I would just use the only manual and example code from the shopping cart or a miva programming site.

With all the other reviews I was apprehensive in buying the book. I bought the book anyway, just like any other computer programming references you would get ideas and techniques here that other books do not offer. A definite must have if you want to improve your skill in SCRIPTING!

I wanted a good primer and reference guide to VBScript - this book was both. There are a few typos here and there, but I think it's a great book and have gotten a lot of use out of it. This was the second book I have bought from the "Unleashed" series and I just bought a third!

This book has so many errors and inaccurate statements that it would definitely place a newcomer to VBScript (which it was obviously written for and by) on the WRONG track. I purchased this book as an aide to prepare for a class I was teaching, and I wasted my money. Do not buy this book!

The book only actually has a few chapters on VBScript, of which most are simple reference guides to the language. There is not enough detail on how to actually use the language. My problems with the book: Only a fraction of the language is covered, and what is mentioned has many errors. The chapter on the scripting object model incorrectly describes how to work with frames. I try to write code using the examples and get nothing but errors. The sample scripts provided work but have bad programming style. The book proceeds to explain ActiveX in great detail, but I bought the book for VBSCript, and was very disappointed that there was only a couple chapters of use to me.

Jesse Liberty and Mike Kraley's XML Web Documents from Scratch(QUE Books) is a high-quality XML book for both beginning and advanceddevelopers. By using a practical web application, Liberty and Kraley describe the ins and outs of XML. I have read many other XML guidebooks/manuals, but none of them compare to XML Web Documents from Scratch. The only flaw I found in the book is that the authors refer to a CD that is supposed to be included, but it did not come with the first printing of the book...

If you've ever had to complete a project that requires you to publish a Word document to the web, you'll fully appreciate the content in this book. Like Jesse states in his own review, most technical books usually give you all of the terms, definitions, and explanations up front and then try to follow that up with a useful example (in most cases, these are not practical examples and don't really help you to learn the material). I particularly like the way this book dives right into a specific problem and forces you to learn everything as the project progresses. One of our current projects requires us to publish a fairly lengthy document to the web. Although our client currently is not requiring us to move the document to XML, we have a feeling that this may someday be a requirement and are approaching this project exactly like the one given in this book. Even if you are not currently involved in a similar project, the benefits of seeing how XML and XSL can be applied in a real-world project are huge!

I give this book an incredible 2 thumbs down. ... I'm a web developer using technologies other than those discussed in the book, but have used ASP, VB, and SQL Server before. I bought this book because I thought it would help me build an XML application. However, what it does it show you how to use the "poorly" written application the author provides.

The book refers to source code on the "CD", but no CD was ever published with the book... you are required to download the source code from his web site and try and use an extremely bad readme to help get the application set up. Within the book, the author deals with subjects is a somewhat disjointed manner and the book is cluttered with so many sidenotes and "excursions" that I wasn't sure what piece of code I was actually referring to.

The author states several times "don't worry if you're not familiar with" a technology (VB, ASP, or SQL)... "I'll explain all the important stuff later"... but never does!!

The application requires the existance of a SQL database from Chapter 2 on, but the setup of that database isn't discussed until Chapter 6??? Once I did get the application and database setup and running, I could not get past the first conversion of html to xhtml, because there were errors reported in the VB classes provided by the author.

I think the concept of the book was great, but I wish the author had taken more time to develop a worthwhile and useful manuscript that actually dealt with the process of putting together the entire application FROM SCRATCH, in an understandable and sequential process.

I'm not sure what the other five star reviewers were reading, but I strongly do not recommend this book -- unless you are specifically looking to use his application to create a web based (XML) application from converted word documents. And even then, good luck on getting it to work!!

I bought the book, and can't escape giving it 2 thumbs down. The reasons: First, it was difficult to follow because Liberty didn't give any overview of why he was doing the material in the book, iu.e., the particular software. He just takes advantage of built-in features of ie5 to convert between xhtml and xml, etc. There is no larger picture, no understanding, conveyed. All we know is that Jesse Libeerty wants to put this book on the web and here is the way to do it. Avoid this one and get XML Bible instead with your hard-earned money.

Scott Fisher's book is the only guide to building web sites I have found that worries about meaning as well as technology. It provides clear guides to those working in education as to how they can build web sites that will have content that is powerful both in terms of the technology it uses and in terms of providing learns with genuinely rich learning experiences. It is an excellent book for teachers new to technology and for web masters new to education.

This book is good for the person that knows nothing at all about building web pages. I would think thear are better books about it.

It is like reading the instructional manual for a six year old computer. Out dated. The companion site, from which many of the tutorials and examples are drawn from, no longer exists. The Section on VRML requires you to down load an App that is no longer available.

It was a great book, and very well written, but technical neglect has taken its toll.