XML Books

I'm never disappointed with Dummies books and this one is no exception. Great read, easy to learn.

Well I /was/ originally looking greatly forward to this book. I had been a fan of the "... for Dummies" books for a while now. Unfortunately I found this one to be a disappointment. Although I can appreciate having sections on good web page design, I felt it was too much to wait until chapter 4 to code your first page. Plus, there's just too much design-based content in the book overall, and not enough of actual HTML tag-based exercises.
The examples on the CD ROM are awful. They really don't give any good insight as to how the tags work. Plus, many of the example files are identical. For example, TFOOT.HTM, THEAD.HTM and TR.HTM are the exact same file. That's just inexcusably lazy. How hard could it have been to exhibit some of the attributes of those tags?
I give it two stars because if you already know HTML, it can be a pretty useful reference. Also, the troubleshooting chapter (chapter 16) was pretty good.

This is a very user friendly book.
On another note, I am impressed with the speed that I received my books.
Thank you Amazon

A few years ago I wanted to learn basic HTML. I figured the best way to do this was to buy "HTML For Dummies" and use it to set up a basic Web site for my church. That way I got both theory and hands on practice. This is exactly what I did, and the book came through for me. I learned enough HTML to set up a basic, but working, Web site for my church.

The only thing I wanted to learn but never could figure out from the book was frames. I settled on tables for navigation since all my attempts at frames failed.

I have since gone on to do a Web site for my cats, a text based site on the subject of the Sabbath, and a Web site to track my weight loss and measurements. I even coded my own little blog at one point.

The next thing I want to learn is some basic CSS to have better control over the Web sites I've created.

I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't know anything about HTML and wants to learn it.

I ordered this book along with Web Design for Dummies expecting to get started writing simple web pages. These books are not for dummies. It offers very little explanation of html tags; it doesn't offer pros or cons of the tag usage vs. another tag; examples are not near the explanation-you need to open the cd to view the eample in question. It spent too much time promoting tools and services outside of the "Dummy" concept.

I was very disappointed with this book...I bought another book which out-performed the Dummy series.

I was new to XML and I searched everywhere for something that could make me comfortable with it. Thanks to this book, I am now very comfortable with this technology. Highly recommended for those new to XML.

This is divided into three parts. The first part, roughly a quarter of the book, includes a detailed, technical discussion of XML and DTDs. The second part, roughly half the book, is devoted to DOM (Document Object Model) and Microsoft's extensions to DOM. Examples largely use Microsoft's XML support. Some limited use is made of Java, but mostly the author's use JavaScript, Visual Basic, and ASPs (Active Server Pages). There is a moderately complex example, an online shopping demo, done from two different perspectives--both using ASPs under Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Server) on the server-side, with one using Microsoft's IE and JavaScript on client-side and the other using a Java applet. There is also complete source for a Visual Basic program that presents an XML document's tree structure. Finally, the last part of the book, roughly a quarter, is devoted to XSL (XML Stylesheet Language). This includes a detailed, technical discussion of XSL.

This was published in July 1999 and so is somewhat dated. I suspect that the book continues to sell because it is on the recommended reading list for IBM's XML certification test. The back cover indicates that the authors are students that interned at Microsoft. Their bias toward Microsoft is unfortunate. It isn't clear that Microsoft has any place in a discussion of XML and associated technology and tools. Contrary to the authors' remarks, Microsoft's XML parser does not conform to the DOM specification. Moreover, languages and tools like Visual Basic and ASPs that are only available on one platform are of limited utility to programmers that need work on multiple platforms (NT, Unix, Mainframe), that is, programmers in the real world. The authors' choices in this regard make their book of limited utility.

I was recommended this book as an introduction to XML/XSL, being a web application developer myself. Well I was lucky to already be familiar with things such as Active Server Pages, Javascript, SQL server, and script programming in general, because otherwise this book is very hard to read.

The first two sections give a very clearly written overview of where XML fits in the current Internet world (though published in 1999, this story is still true I think), but after that the book quickly becomes rather technical with lots of references to chapters that are still to come. Moreover, some of the examples contain awkward typos. Still, after reading this book I have the feeling that I am now quite capable of designing and realzing XML/XSL based web applications myself, especially after re-creating their on-line shopping demo, an excellent example that the two authors provide. Their (previous) involvement in Microsoft I did not find bothersome; on the contrary, since Internet Explorer is still the only browser that supports XML in a decent fashion, their knowledge of IE5 comes in handy.

All in all recommended for the more technically oriented people involved in web app design, although the book could maybe by now use a revision and an overall quality review.

intended for the programmer new to XML/XSL - has the clearest explanation of the structure behind the DOM model, and how to use it out of the 4 or 5 books I went through. Gives you enough understanding of foundation to layer in complex code, in several different approaches. I really liked the level of their example - not the trivial bits and pieces found in books like WROX, but a coherent and complete set of code. This is not a reference manual, which is probably just as well with XML/XSL being the moving target it is, but a textbook that actually enlightens. I thought the organization was well-thought out - but I got the book because I'm NOT an expert in this.

Although this book tries to cover a lot of useful information, the overall effort is poorly written, lacks coherent organization within each chapter, and at times rather juvenile. The youth of both authors is clearly evident and the book is better skimmed than read (often too painful to read). Oftentimes the authors put the cart before the horse when trying to teach a concept. Likewise, their examples tend to be rather weak and trivial rather than based on real-world usage patterns and scenarios. The authors' lack of professional experience in creating the kinds of applications that benefit from XML detracts from their overall ability to present the capabilities of XML in a professional manner.

In general, this is a helpful book if you need to research a particular design solution, but it should in no way be used exclusively to learn CSS. It's helpful to have CSS and javascript experience to fully take advantage of everything this book offers.

Unfortunately, the book contains some organizational flaws. The "General" chapter, which is meant to serve as an introduction to CSS, is a brief background to concepts and tools, but it doesn't always point out that certain selectors are not supported in every browser (child selectors and pseudo-elements are the most notable). I think it'd be helpful to state straight-up that many aspects of CSS are interpreted differently in various browsers, if supported at all, and then note which browsers support each feature as the feature is introduced to the reader. To their credit, they do include a "pitfalls/warnings" icon at the end of some sections, but it'd be helpful to know about them before you continue on to work through one of their examples, only to discover later that it doesn't work in IE6. Since most people would like to design for a cross-browser experience, they might just want to skip over certain CSS features that are not widely supported, so indicating browser support up-front would be very helpful. And I wonder how valuable it is to mention something like "text-shadow" if it is only currently supported by one browser? In addition, some important concepts are buried in the book (such as the fundamental concept of inheritance and the !important rule) - they might be better placed in the "General" chapter (introduction).

Though this book does have its flaws, I have to say that it does assemble some nice formatting tricks. I have previously scoured the Web searching for many of the techniques that are all nicely packaged in one place in the "Images" chapter, so I am sure this would be a real time-saver for many, as the leg-work is already done for you. Among some commonly sought out techniques are rounded corners, dropshadows, and the lightbox effect. The "Lists" and "Navigation" chapters are also pretty useful. The "recipes" this book includes are not only a means to accomplish a particular goal, but the solutions are creatively achieved so that you start thinking about using CSS in less out-of-the-box ways. And kudos to them for mentioning accessibility/usability in the "Typography" chapter - those concepts often fall to the wayside in comparison to glitzier topics.

The CSS Cookbook is written for those starting out with CSS and advanced users. It is not written as a tutorial in order to learn CSS but anyone with a basic grip on CSS will find the book a valuable companion. The clear explanations of many of the pitfalls we come across when writing CSS are simply stated in an easy to look up format.
Even though you may not want to read the book front to cover I think its a great experience to just pick your chapters by what interests you most and to work through a complete chapter following along and rewriting the code as indicated in order to get a good feel of what problems are solved so that if along the way you run in to a problem you find it back without mach ado. You might learn things you never knew where that simple ore useful. For those who are transitioning from table based layouts to CSS it might not be to book to get familiar with CSS because it is a technical book, a little to dry for just getting into using CSS. Once you have gone through the initial learning curve using books like Head First: HTML and CSS from O'Reilly or Eric Meyers on CSS from New Riders you will be ready to use the book as it is intended: A constant companion within reach whenever the going gets tough,
Chapter 9 on page layout for example clearly explains what took me a long time to understand when starting out trying to use floats for layout. A common problem like columns floated to the left being shorter then the second column located on the right and the resulting overflow of this right column below the left -floated column, I almost forgot that that took me hours to solve when starting out with CSS. In "CSS Cookbook" these behaviors/problems are explained almost in order of appearance as we are working to accomplice more complicated layouts using relative or absolute positioning. There are many resources out on the web but wadding through them is time consuming and being able to find your solutions in a one or two page example including code and images are a big time saver. After each problem there is almost always a "See Also" referral to either another recipe in the book or a link to a more detailed explanation online directing you not only to reliable CSS resources but also to the direct location of the particular problem at hand within these CSS online community resources.
In the same chapter on layout Christopher Schmitt takes us trough as step-by-step tutorial on Alex Robinson's influential article on creating the "any order Columns" published at postitioniseverything.com. A great exercise in understanding floats and how to be creative with code.
In chapter 4 on page elements you will find a great example on some creative ways to add java in your pages and I really appreciate the precise instructions here since that is still kind of new to me. The results are truly beautiful, and would inspire any visual designer and can even be applied to background images placed from a style sheet as you can see applied at [...] a small testing / playground of mine.

A whole chapter is dedicated to forms, another to print.
You will find a clear explanation of how to run multiple versions of i.e. and how to install them. I always new where to find them, just could not get them to work until now! I wish the same simple explanation were given on how to implement Shaun Inmans "clearing a float" in a absolute positioned design since it still is not working for me. (patience, patience...)

The books focus is on solving CSS problems so don't expect all files/example that accompany the book to be validating. I find that a bit of a draw back since the document type used is XHTML Strict in most example files. I think the book as well as the accompanying files may need someone to go through them one more time with a fine comb to correct some of the minor coding errors.
It's really not to be picking but the book is meant for those familiar with code looking to switch over to CSS and for those more advanced. Using a XTML strict Doc declaration in most documents, would it not be neater if the document where written and validated as such? Text without a paragraph surrounding it or a

inside a paragraph, missing closing tacks, make it hard for those who are starting out to find confidence when the CSS is somehow not working. Is it I, is it the book? Honestly, when I get stuck I like to know it's something I did wrong and not the book I am learning from. I did however not find any CSS errors in any of the samples I worked trough!

I never read the first edition of the CSS Cookbook but with the release of IE 7 the book has been updated.
In chapter 3 on images it is stated that at press time IE 5x and 6 do not support a fixed background image in a header to receive a particular effect. I tested in IE 7 and its now is now behaving as it should, so the book I think was released before IE `s 7 official release. Would it have been wiser to wait for this? I think there would have been a more structured outline then of what is still missing and a clearer picture of what to expect in the future working with multiple browsers and demands.

In a ocean of resources in print and online, in the midst of so many tutorials and inspirational articles written on CSS we need a book that works like a Swiss Army Knife to help us solve the problems and issues we come across when we are working on a project and don't have the time to wade trough some of the indeed fascinating and very valuable recourses we can find online. We need a direct solution...We need to know that when we do get stuck or want to push the boundaries that there is a resource that is not lost in a endless list of valuable bookmarks, however well organized, one we can access immediately. Therefore it can be a valuable reason to work through the chapters of interest so that when time is of the essence we know where to go.
Especially when working on commercial project and when we are not at liberty to suggest that, well maybe IE users will not get the full experience of some more advanced and also very popular browsers, but...

In short it is imported to know what works or not and
to have some workarounds or at least to hide from those browsers who don't support what you are doing.
Me personally, I am passionate in my belief and the reasoning behind it, to not letting a product of lesser quality hold down a development....
And especially because of this is it so important to have the tools at hand to know when to support or bypass older browsers to know what works and what not etc.

I almost want to keep the book a secret just because of the fantastic light box example in chapter 4.6. What a beauty. The book really makes you want to explore and experiment with some more java code added in to your designs. A true gem released a bit to hasty. I don't want a refund and you cannot borrow my copy!

In the past I've had confidence in the quality of books published by O'Reilly, but this book was a huge disappointment. There are so many errors--both typos and grammatical errors--coupled with awkward writing, that I find it almost unreadable. Even the diagram for the box model on page 67 is messed up. How is it possible that this sloppiness could get published (again!) in a second edition? There may be some valuable information in the book, but with all the mistakes I don't trust it as a resource. Look for authors Eric Meyers, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Andy Clarke for better CSS books.

There are just too many "bugs" (typos, coding errors, misplaced figures, etc.) in this book to recommend it. I could forgive the many grammatical errors (though there's really no excuse for them), but when you're supposed to be passing along coding solutions and there are this many errors in the very code you're recommending, it's just unacceptable. I spent way too much time trying to unravel the coding errors to make this book really useful.

I also agree with the reviewer who said he couldn't figure out who the book was for (e.g., beginner, advanced programmer, etc.). I think the problem lies largely in the way the book was organized (or rather, wasn't organized). They need to take this book back to the workshop, clean up the errors, re-arrange the content and then, perhaps, they will have something worthy of publishing.

There is some excellent information here. The sections on forms and the CSS calendar were helpful for me. The nested list to breadcrumb solution is lovely, but this book was written too often for best case (or browser) scenarios, not always the world as it is.

Floats are covered for CSS layout but there is no mention of some common Internet Explorer bugs that make their use tricky, including common bugs like the expanding box and guillotine bugs. Holly Hack anybody? How about the problem with setting percent font sizes in the body selector without defining them first in html. Granted IE 7 fixes most of the shortcomings of older versions of the browser but to pretend they don't exist for a measurable percentage of the browsing population is negligent.

Where CSS works as it should, the solutions are fine. Where it doesn't there is too little discussion of the real everyday lack of support in various browsers. If discrete "solutions" are given, the problems associated with each "solution" should be mentioned in the "solution:, not left to a later section that is not cross-referenced. There is a token section at the end of the book on hack support but it is superficial. Even where browser support is mention, it is usually at the end of the solution, where we see it, if at all, after wasting time working through the code. A simple, "This works in xyz browsers at the beginning of each "solution" would have been a great improvement. As they are, some "solutions" only solve problems in a minority percentage of browsers.

There are simply too many good and complete CSS books like Meyer's CSS: The Definitive Guide and CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll that give us better real world coverage of CSS usage. For beginners there is Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide by Charles Wyke-Smith. For the experienced there is the stunning new Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke and Molly Holzschlag. I ordered CSS Cookbook in a moment of book craving and am not thrilled by it.

I'm torn on sending it back. It is far from the best general reference, but does have some good content. If I wasn't experienced enough to recognize where it offers less than complete information, it could cause me head scratching with the layout solutions.

Where was Dan Cederholm for this revision?

The most comprehensive book I've ever read about JSP! Must have for JSP developer

I think the authors of this book are really "Professional" in working on their projects, but not really "Professional" on how to work together to make a good book that is easy to read and understand. I'd recommend "Web developement with Java Server Pages" (from the IBM "Einstein" & the MIT "Rocketman") Save your penny my friends.

Too wordy, like other WROX books.

The title of my review sums it up. For a beginner I expected this book to get me up and running, It never did. I read the first 5 chapters and their was way too much focus on the Java code that was created by the JSP engine from a JSP page, and not enough emphasis on how to implement and use JSP. BOOOOH. And there are numerous spelling mistakes, including one on the first page of the introduction. C'mon WROX, wheres your QA/Copywriters? I will return this in exchange for ISBN 1884777996

I didn't like this book. The examples are hard to follow. Also, it assumes you want to use other technologies like Servlets in conjunction of your JSP pages, which I'm not. API is not organized very well and hard to find things fast. I hope my O'Reilly (on order) is better...

It's February 2001, and this book still does a better job of explaining what XML is all about than ones with a 2001 copyright date. St. Laurent's understanding of a Primer is right on target. Instead of having tons of code for the reader to cluelessly hammer out, he explains how XML works, and so when the reader does code the examples, he understands far better what's going on. The explanation of the Document Object Model is unmatched in any of the other books published on XML. Likewise, the crucial topic of Document Type Definitions (DTD) is handled far better and in intelligent detail than anything published since.

Unfortunately, XML is deceptively complex. While it doesn't take a rocket scientist to crank up an XML file, toss in some CSS and claim XML is yet another programming language one has conquered, understanding how the DTD works requires more than a couple of examples and a reassuring pat on the shoulder that the reader can do it in an afternoon. What St. Laurent does, and does well, is to prepare the serious developer/programmer for understanding XML. To be sure, the book represents a foundation for using XML and is not an entire treatise on all that XML can do. However, unlike some of the books I've seen on XML that contain code that will not validate (including on their CD ROMs), this book gets it right. If you want to get XML right, this book is the place to start.

Data organization is XML's strength, making it an excellent mechanism for transfering information from one application to another -- whether it is a database, a legacy system, or a web site. Strangely, the author never really gets the point across.

Even near the end of the book, the author only briefly mentions the XML parsing tool called SAX (the popular XML/Java API). Unfortunately, he fails to provide details on it use. SAX offers an easy way for computers to read an XML file and extract the data. Perl and Active Server Page APIs are also available for those who do not program in Java. But, data organization is only one of the strengths of XML. Many others exist. (The author misses these, too.)

This book is the worst technical book I've ever purchased. If it were feasible, I'd give it negative stars. If you are interested in learning AND using XML's capabilities, check out David Hunter's "Beginning XML". Compare the table of contents. You'll see the difference.

I'm a web developer who knows both HTML and CSS. I bought this book wondering what the world of XML could be about. I was told that it was the "future" of the internet or something. I browsed some online tutorials, and found that this was not just some simple language you could learn in a couple weeks. As I opened the book, I started reading the introduction. The beginning of the book is very interesting because St. Laurent gets into much detail about where XML came from and the roots of practically every language it derived from (like C). But as I read on into the book, he was very wordy. this book needed a CD-ROM with it. The language itself is very simple. But there are many rules that you must follow. To a typical, experienced developer his language is probably most understandable. As I was reading about DTDs n such (i had to read it over a bzillion times) I got even more confused. Finally, I just decided to put it down. His explanations were NOT in layman's terms so the curious user could understand. True, he did give lengthy explanations, but it could be because I read it all during school in small snippets. I never tried out his onlione stuff he has pasted all over the book. What I'm saying is I don't think this book is for curious new users. Maybe users thatr understand all the basic stuff, then just wanna use it as a reference or be told why exactly something does something. A user said earlier that he doesn't leave the reader guessing random code. Well, if you flip thru the back, you can see that the lengthy code pages offer tiny explanations. The IS a ton of code pages. Just thought I'd point that out. I would not recommend this book to anyone. The cheapest is not always the best.

I first read this book a few years ago, and still read excerpts from it periodically as friends get involved. In one of the early chapters, St Laurent basically asserts that WYSIWYG was actually a technological setback. I knew at that point I was going to enjoy the book.

If you're into computer science, and want to understand the technology - this is a great place to start.

Some people appear to really like this book. It has received many glowing reviews, but I can only shake my head in disagreement. This book is a dud -- too much text, and not enough practical advise or code examples.

The author could not adequately describe how to use basic XML components such as Document Type Definitions (DTDs), and failed to show how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be used to display XML on the web.

If you are a web programmer or need to do something useful with

XML, look elsewhere. This is not the book for you. In fact, I'm selling this book. Wanna buy it? I'll use the proceeds to purchase "Beginning XML" by Kurt Cagle. That book looks promising.

The subtitle of this book is a trifle misleading: Byte Wars is about a great deal more than the impact of September 11 on information technology. It is indeed as it proclaims, but covers a far wider scope. In Byte Wars, Ed Yourdon examines the myriad strategic shifts, trends, and paradigm changes not necessarily caused by Sept 11th, but trends that were already underway and have been changed or accelerated by the war on terrorism.

The author speaks directly to the reader in his typically confident tone, but the voice this time is more sober. There is not much of the typical humor we expect from Ed Yourdon, he is clearly shaken and sobered, like most of us, by the horrific events of Sept. 11th. Indeed, the first sentence, "This is not a book I expected to write" is a harbinger of much of the book's the sobering matter.

The structure of the book is straightforward: It begins with an overview of the broad changes which will profoundly affect industrialized and developing countries. This introduction is followed by more specific, detailed chapters about major aspects of IT and thoughtful predictions of sweeping changes to come in the areas of security, risk management, emergent systems, resilient systems, good enough systems, and death-march projects. A note about the "Death-March" chapter--it may suffice as an introduction to this topic for the general reader, and provides a timely update on the topic for readers of Mr. Yourdon's earlier book by the same title.

This is an important book-particularly for IT professional and those directly affected by the IT industry. I highly recommended Byte Wars for this audience as well as general business readers and thoughtful readers of the general public.

I paid ... for this worthless beatup. There is little new
thought in it, and almost no depth. The main thread running
through it is that September 11th changed all of the rules and
a secondary thread is that Ed had finally twigged to the fact
that many other races and nationalities don't like the style
business practices and methods of the US of A.

Well Ed, September 11th didn't alter ANY rules of computer
security, it just moved security to a brighter location
in the CEO's firmanent and most third worlders have loathed
the USA for as long as I've been on the planet. They've just
got a lot more effective in expressing that feeling lately.

I can honestly say I expected a book with some technical
appreciation of the problem and some working methods for
bypassing and sidelining mid-level managers whose major
worry is the number of fly-buys they've racked up for
the month.

If you're looking for answers or technical tips on Infowar
don't spend your money on this ... book, its a yaaaawwwwnnn!

Regards,

Sherro.

A few years back, Ed was so hard up for cash that he wrote a book called "Time Bomb 2000!" in which he predicted the end of civilization. This silly prophecy only served to expose Yourdon for the fly-by-night, fast-talking, hourly-rate, con artist that he is. In other words, Ed completely undermined his reputation with every CIO in the industry.

My guess is that, on 1/1/2000, Ed was hunkering down in his survival retreat, drinking his bottled water, and wondering where in god's name his credibility went.

Given that his career as an oracle was cut short, Ed decided that he'd stop predicting the future and start cashing out on the 9/11 mania. Just like any talk show host or stand up comedian, Ed found ample material to make a few bucks off of the hysteria. He demonstrated the kind of initiative that would make Jeraldo Rivera proud.

The goal of this book is to keep Ed's name in circulation, so that he can charge a few more dollars for his worthless consulting services. Perhaps he'll use the royalties to refinish his deck or replace the transmission in his aging sports car. Ed's not going to tell you anything you don't already know, he's just going to make you think he will (which is the trick he uses to get you to buy it).

This leads me to think that I need to write Ed a letter...

Dear Ed,

Hello there little trooper. Isn't time for someone to pack it up and call it a career? Wouldn't the whole industry benefit if you took your fat, wrinkled, mug out of the public eye.

You pretty much admitted, in DeathMarch, that structured analysis was a crock. Face it, old man, you're over the hill. You've got no good ideas left. You're so desperate for ideas that you're reprinting Deathmarch. What are you going to do next time, reprint Time Bomb 2000!

I think you've fooled enough people out of their money. You've had your fun, Ed, now retire to Boca Raton and give us all a well deserved rest.

Please, Ed, pretty please.

Your Pal,
LLNL Engineer

I read Yourdon's Y2K book a couple years ago, so I decided to read this one too. I don't see why people are making such a stink about all of this. He didn't predict the end of the world with Y2K - he just said there COULD be problems, and that people ought to check it out and make their own decisions.

Anyway, y2K was theoretical when everyone was writing those books, nobody knew for sure what might happen or might not happen. September 11 was real, the only question is whether something like it might happen again. The terrorists say that it will, and the government bigwigs say that its pretty likely. So the question is what should we do about it.

I thought maybe Yourdan was going to talk about anthrax and smallpox and nuclear bombs in his book but he doesn't. He only talks about the computer risks. I don't see why anyone wold attack my computer at home, so I was skeptical at first. But he made me think a lot about the idea of grass-roots networks and what he calls emergent systems, because things are happening too fast and too unpredictable for the government to tell us what to do. Like it took the government six months to come up with this color coded alert system, and all they can do is tell us we are at yellow alert right now but they don't tell us what we should do about it. We have to figure it out by ourselves, we're on our own.

I see some other people are saying Yourdan only wrote what you could find in other books. Well maybe so, but he has a bibliography with 54 books in it, and I'm sure glad I didn't have to buy all those books and read them to understand what's going on. And it looks like he tracked down hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles to get the detailed information, and I sure don't have time to do that by myself.

Anyway, Yourdan really made me think about some stuff that I didn't even know about. Some of it doesn't matter very much in my life, especially because I don't even work in a computer job. But if God forbid there is another terrorist attack, and if it's a computer attack instead of planes flying into buildings, some of his ideas could really be important to me and my family. It doesn't matter to me if I agree with everything he says. The main thing is he made me THINK about some things.

Ed Yourdon's most well-known recent work is probably TimeBomb 2000, a book that inspired so much unwarranted fear that one terrified couple on his Internet forum attempted to give away their newborn grandchild to complete strangers in hopes that it would survive the terrible Y2K rollover. Indeed, Yourdon himself was quoted as saying that the likelihood that the various Y2K "trigger dates" would pass without incident was equal to that of pigs learning to fly.

Thankfully, Byte Wars avoids such ridiculous predictions and hysteria, but instead offers the reader no new insights into information technology and little to nothing relating to 9/11. Yourdon is a true Master of the Obvious in this book, which apparently capitalizes on the 9/11 tragedy without actually addressing it. If you're looking for real insight into the effects of 9/11 on the IT industry, I would wait a few more months for a more relevant work. This one just doesn't cut it.

This title is very good for understanding basic WS technologies. But is older for now and some informations are outdated. Reprint with updated information (espec. UDDIv3) would be good.

As a glosary is very good, if you where aming to learn how to program a web service it was not very good for me. I would prefer more code samples from the basics to advanced. Definitely you should have a previous knowledge of XML, and maybe even some basic knowledge of webservices before reading this.

I recommend this book for everyone beginning Web Services. However, I do so with a word of caution: READ IT SLOWLY AND READ IT TWICE. The book has a great spread of issues but is extremely difficult to sit down and read/work through.

All the issues covered are covered lightly with the exception of the most important topics: WSDL, SOAP, UUDI and ebXML. The only thing it didn't touch on that I wish it would have was REST.

Key pieces of these topics are scattered and you need to be careful to read through and keep notes about where you can find more information (I found myself keeping margin notes on where key pieces of information were in the book at the introduction of each topic).

I recommend it so that you can understand the complexity and get a good overview of the topic, but I would definitely say that the book is only a good place to begin. It will leave your head spinning, but if you have purchased other books on individual topics, it will provide you with a reference on how they tie together.

The book has its ups and it has its downs, but it is worth reading.

We bought this book trying to find a good overview about what web-service implementation is, what WSDL means what RPC/Document style means, etc, by an expert point of view, I must say at least this is not the case.

There are a lot of paragraphs with useless information, that in the first read you avoid because you don't understand, in the next reads you avoid because they are useless.

Terms are confusing and mixed up, explanations also.

If you like skipping paragraphs it is a good newbie introduction, if you have some background on web-service just avoid it.

Really disappointing

This book provides a pretty good overview of web services--although it's a little heavy handed with xml. Bottom line is that i6t would be easy to wal away from this book thinking web services is simply xml schema--and miss the bigger picture.

...and not for a beginner. Filled with samples and graphs-which somewhat help the extremely confusing writing style. Bradley's style reminds me of the teacher I had when I was 10 years old who found it very easy to go off on a new tangent--and very difficult to be brief, concise or clear.
Fine for a reference, if you already know what you want.

I loved this book. I've got about eight or ten XML books, but this is the one I turn to for my "Why?" questions.

It's not a tutorial or cookbook, but it explains XML logically and historically. I don't sit down at my computer with this book ready to type in stuff. This is the book that I sit down with in my comfortable armchair ready to understand XML in a way that makes sense and sticks with me. It's very readable.

I bought this book when I was still trying to get my head around XML and found it much more confusing than clarifying. However, many years later, once I had a solid foundation of XML, I pulled this book back out and actually did find it mostly useful. The author covers a lot of minutia that is difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere (he devotes an entire chapter to whitespace issues, for example), and if you really have a need to understand what is going on under the hood, this book can actually serve as a handy reference. Still, I do think the material could have been better presented - chapter 6 discusses "Architectural Forms", for example. I have read and re-read the explanation several times and still cannot fathom what they are or why they would be useful... there are quite a few such topics in the book.

1. Depth and breadth of topics being covered with real application make this a solid reference for XML applications, such as Apache Cocoon 1 & 2 Frameworks. Java is indeed a natural companion to XML.

2. It is not a cookbook of raw XML/XSLT/CSS/XSchema/XLink/XInclude/XPointer, etc... It actually explains the Design behind the implementation leaving one to approach implementation with foresight and focus on planning before one wastes needless hours of frustration during rushed implementations.

3. It is for someone with a solid understanding of MVC (Model/View/Controller) abstraction approaches that are pervasive in OOA/OOD that includes Smalltalk, Objective-C, Java, C++, C#, Javascript, Python, Ruby, etc...

4. It describes XML as a means to be both a boon for turning publishing into an Art of Reuse as well as how XML solidifies many failed attempts of standards that were not able to become language agnostic. XML and all her siblings are that meta bridge.

5. With the XSL Companion those who complained about it being either difficult to grasp or tediously complex will be vindicated and appreciate returning to this book to explain all the questions that surface along the way during any project they become involved in helping solve.

6. Neil is very honest that this book is about wrapping your head around the XML paradigm and not about being a Dictionary of answers to all your XML application(s) needs. It should become clear the reason behind so many XML application standards. There are just so many avenues to address how could they all possibly be expressed in just one book?

Bradley's book is a pretty complete guide to XML and related technologies. The main chapters are almost tutorial in style, with plenty of code examples to follow. The end of the book contains a small reference section. The topics covered are XML, XSL, XSLT, DOM, SAX, XPath, Schemas, XLink, XHTML, and CSS. Discussions are for the most part clear and accurate. I have two main complaints about Bradley. First, the prose, while accurate, is often overly verbose. It could be written more concisely and compactly. Second, each chapter is broken into sections, but the sections are not numbered, so it is difficult to locate material in the text. The main advantage is the comprehensive general coverage of XML-related technologies. Buying this one book will arm you with the knowledge to develop XML applications and content, and it will save you money. If you have very specific needs, you may need to supplement Bradley with another more focused text that delves deeper into a particular technology. Also, if you want to see longer applications presented as case studies, you might want a different text. I recommend this book for beginning and intermediate XML users who want broad, general coverage in a single book.

Don't waste your money. This book isn't supported any longer by the author and publisher so the code is no longer on the web. The code inside the book is so disjointed that I found it impossible to follow. They shouldn't be selling expired books.

This book was suprisingly useful. I bought it to understand how to connect Flash to XML server back ends, but it quickly taught me much more that I was not expecting. The true value of this book is teaching how to use Actionscript 1.0 to make Flash Clients talk to servers with the fastest, leanest possible code (Not necessarily XML.)

The author does a great job of teaching how to make reusable, tiny, elegantly structured modules to build a trivia game. The lessons in here should be required reading for any Flash Actionscript programmer BEFORE they can use any fat Actionscript 2.0 components. By reading this book, you can avoid torturing your users with the "Loading Forever" progress bars which result from using Flash without understanding it's elegant, fast loading, optimized roots.

I used this book to add database capabilities to our flash app, and could not have done it with out it. Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but it would have taken *significantly* longer.

Getting flash connected to a database requires a combination of good strategy and lots arcane nitpicking details that span multiple knowledge domains. The book brings you along, step by step, in making the app dynamic. The discussions of database design and implementation via PHP and mySQL were very useful.

The book was written during the day of Flash 5, but aside from a couple of outdated screen shots, the ActionScript is current with the version 7.

There were a couple of places where some explanations were a little light, but all in all, it was worth many times the price I paid for it.

Authors have deep understanding of the subject, which is
eveident in their clear and simple way of explaining things.

I have to agree with other users who point out the book's awkward construction. It's sort of a mutant blend of a hands-on how-to book and a broader discussion of Flash and XML. As the authors ramble through the creation of an XML-based quiz engine, they abruptly propose different ways of addressing coding issues, then move on to the discussion of another coding aspect without telling you which of the two or three or four options you should have plugged in in order for the next set of code to work with it.

By mid-2004 this approach is even more awkward as you discover that some of the hands-on steps they tell you to carry out no longer work in Flash MX or Flash MX 2004; there's nothing on the cover or the introductory material to warn you that the authors wrote this for Flash 5.

Overall a wandering essay. Not for the novice to data management.

I recommend you take a look at David Marco's "Building and Managing the Meta Data Repository: A Full Lifecycle Guide" which I found to be much more useful and pointed.

That said, if you are suffering from insomnia definitely buy this book, too!

This is a very good book about metadata, but I can only give it 3 stars because the author makes some very worrying (and sometimes quite amusing) mistakes.
For example, in the preface page xxii, the UML semantics for unrefined association, aggregation and generalization are *completely* wrong. So is the syntax for UML object. This is a very worrying error for a metadata book. Finally, there is the amusing quote on page 180, "if you have mastered the art of metadata by mastering the ability to think like a tool...". In England, "tool" is actually a well-known synonym for d*rk! Not the author's fault, but one would expect an editor to pick up on something like this!
Apart from these unfortunate errors, the book is well-written and very readable, and will certainly give you lots of useful information and techniques for working with metadata. Definitely one to keep on your bookshelf for reference. Well done Adrienne!

It's about time that I found this book. I am responsible for dealing with a metadata mess in my agency and nothing out there seemed to get me clear on what the real problems are. This book not only explained what should have been done but also how to fix things. Highly recommended for those that need to do something

If you need to get something done check this book out. not just about metadata but also about where it is and how to use it. A good spot to check possible architectures or product designs and it has lots of actual cases

Tannenbaum clearly knows the data storage and mining industry. She has produced a book that brings together a comprehensive view of metadata and of its parent, meta-metadata.

It is rather easy to find a book on the details of XML, for example. Or on SQL and its various commercial and open source implementations. And on database design.

But all these can be regarded as lower level details. What if you have several data warehouses, each with its own DBMS catalog, and the warehouses are not from the same vendor? Plus, there are manifold, quite separate application tools that read/write to these. You want to develop a coherent integrated view of the data, hopefully by using metadata descriptors. The type of texts mentioned above are of little help here. The vendor specific books typically orient you to their product alone.

Tannenbaum has striven to fill this market gap. She explains what metadata is, and what a metamodel is. All done at a high level that frees you from the syntax of XML or SQL. Though she does use UML in many diagrams, you do not need to know UML to understand them.

My only quibble is that perhaps some more detailed examples would have been instructive. The high level discussions are good. But some readers might miss the significances of some remarks. More explicit pedagogic examples might drive home the points.