XML Books

Before buying this book please read the title.
This is only what you are going to find a spec. usefull?

This book is a peek into what will become Microsoft's major new web services intiative, .NET My Services. It contains a preliminary set of specs on the architecture of these XML-based web services, and a chapter or two on what .NET My Services is and how you might use it. The upcoming (spring 2002) "Introduction to .NET My Services" book from MS Press will contain a more in-depth introduction, including code samples and an updated "What is this and how will I use it" section.

I bought this book in order to learn XML and how Oracle implemented it. This book assumes you know XML and Java very well, and glosses over many details. There is no reference for the myriad functions used in the examples so you really have to look elsewhere, like Metalink. I still don't know what book covers the details left out of this one! I will buy it when I find it.

I must own 8 or 10 Oracle Press books . . .

This book cover very little PLSQL developement with XML and the limitations or work arounds for the related problems. It covers more on the java side ...

I'm still slogging through this weighty tome but so far it hasn't provided much in the way of solutions. This book might be a nice reference for someone who's at the point where they want to address obscure SGML problems, it definitely isn't appropriate for someone new to SGML.

The XML and SGML Cookbook is really more about SGML than about XML, but users of the entire family of markup languages will find much to learn in this entertaining and readable tome. Jelliffe starts with vivid descriptions of the information structuring process, with useful warnings and suggestions throughout. His recipes for document structures are useful and cover a wide variety of possible situations. The section on internationalization is compelling, explaining clearly the wide variety of issues that complicate data processing and typesetting.

The price may seem a bit steep, but the information is well worth it. The layout is much friendlier than the rest of this series, a welcome companion to keep next to your keyboard as you work on your latest *ML project. Beginners will need an introductory guide to the syntax, but this is an excellent guide to the process and the theory behind markup language development.

I usually read just to get a big picture. I thought this did the job. Dummies Books are a lot more palatable than other books on topics as dry as this.

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

As a complete newbie to XML this was a good starter. As I got deeper into XML I found several mistakes/deficiencies in the book, and sometimes the author just flat out seemed to not know what he was talking about. For instance, the claim on page 86 that (#CDATA) is a valid DTD element content definition is flat out wrong. His description of Schema element declarations (pp. 114-115) teaches that using globals/refs is the only way to define complex elements, and is inappropriate for his example. He makes no mention of globals at all, leaving the reader confused. I have ceased to trust this book as a valid source of XML information.

If you want to kill your time without learning anything, this book is absolute right for you.

These reviews are all very misleading as they refer to a previous edition of the book which is no longer available, the third edition of XML For Dummies. XML For Dummies, 4th edition, the book featured here, addresses many of the concerns raised in the reviews of the third edition.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your money on this book. Buy the XML Bible instead. It is much clearer, deeper, and nicer to read.

I've been in a process of trying to learn XML for quite awhile, and the books to be found on this topic have been frustrating. I'm trying to learn something new, but find difficulty learning from book after book that has so many mistakes. I'm able to learn just enough to realize the mistakes in the book, why something isn't working, and then troubleshoot the XML document I'm putting together.

Learning XML is nothing, but producing a VALID document through a Document Type Definition that you must write yourself is harder. You're then learning that process too. Plus..XSL and XSLT..so that the documents are Web usable.

I found Sam's Teach Yourself XML in 21 days better than most books I've worked with so far. The book was helpful. I also appreciated the links offered for great software, one of them being Architag XRay for transformations. It beats using Saxon at a command line.

If you want to learn XML, this book can help you with some basics. A better book is Real World XML by Steven Holzner.

This book provides a somewhat technical introduction to several aspects of XML. Its 21 chapters are designed to be covered in 21 days over 3 weeks. The basics of XML are covered in the first week, followed by more advanced XML topics such as XML linking, and viewing and processing XML in the second week, and finally by programming and using style sheets with XML and real world XML applications in the third week. The book contains many examples, and a blurb on the back cover states that the code for the examples are available online at the publisher's Website. (There is no accompanying CD. A CD would really have been handy, since it could have contained all of the freeware validators and editors featured in the text, as well as the examples.)

Having just been assigned to teach a course in XML, I hoped that this book would not only contain a clear set of lessons for mastering the language as I have found in other SAMS Teach Yourself books, but also provide strong justification for adopting XML. I found the lessons to be less than clear. At times they seemed to be little more than simple documentation for various XML rules of syntax. Statements such as leave me scratching my head and wondering "How do I use this?" Quite a few chapters in the second week and beyond are little more than introductory documentation for various bits of freeware editors or validators for XML. On the back cover, the publisher suggests that the book is written for beginning and intermediate levels. It may indeed be appropriate for beginners in XML, as long as the XML beginners happen to be already quite adept at HTML and fairly confident with JavaScript as well. It's definitely not a good starting place for Web newbies.

As for reasons to adopt XML, I found the following preface to chapter 21 very telling "Although I have tried to relate everything you have learned about XML in this book to something practical, and preferably something visible, that hasn't always been easy...In today's lesson I'm going to stick to that policy and although I will review some of the more esoteric applications, I will try to concentrate on XML applications that already work." In many areas in the book, the authors drag us through arcane details of XML syntax, only to point out that these features aren't actually usable yet because the required application software hasn't been completed yet, and that the specific syntax may change once the feature is finally implemented. It's all a bit too much too soon. This book may be of interest someday to historians of the Net, who want to learn about directions that XML might have taken as of 1999, but it's a bit frustrating as a guide to the future (if XML really does turn out to be the Web language of the future).

As the other reviews say this book is a 100% waste of money! For me it seems like the authors were just writing / speaking to here themselves speak. They also just give WAY to many examples of SGML and HTML for a history lesson - really zero actual examples of working XML. Also I found severl errors sprinkled across this text and I found myself always flipping back to see what these authors were talking about. The only good thing this book is good for is proping up a coffe table or keeping yourself warm next to a roaring fire as you use this book for fuel.

I have bought a number of Sams books and found most of them very instructive, but this book was a total waste of time and money. There's no logical pattern to learning XML presented in this text. Topics are scattered and there's no recognizable learning pattern. There are too many references to SGML and HTML, and too few XML hand-on examples. If you need to understand the history and similarities of XML to HTML and SGML, go ahead and buy this book. If you need to apply XML or need to develop a good understanding of it for future development, look into a book that walks you through the development of practical applications.

With some java background, using XML Complete to learn XML is not a bad idea. The programs are well written. I do have some compilation errors with some of the programs; but with a little fix you're good to go.

After reading through this book, I was so thoroughly disgusted that I took the time to print out a new title, "XML Complete CRAP", and tape it to the spine of this book. I even matched the color and the font exactly! Why did I spend an hour of my time doing this? Because I wanted to save my co-workers the effort of pulling this ridiculous book off our bookshelf and opening it. This book is a "complete" joke. The writing is muddled, the layout and font are awful, and the examples are repeatedly copied and pasted to fluff up the book and make it look respectable. I would be astonished if there was a worse book out there.

I read this book cover to cover before I took out the CD. What could be simpler - just download the parser and off you go. No it didn't work like that. The parser isn't on the Microsoft site in that form and without it the book is a waste of time. I find it amazing that a book like this can be written that fails on the most fundamental point - the basic tools aren't included.

What was the author thinking i mean the book just talks about java infact one whole chapter i brought the book to learn XML and it doesn't teach you that it teaches you more java then XML.

This book is bad on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin. The typesetter was clearly drunk, as evidenced by the unreadable spacing and inconsistent typefaces used in the code samples. The code samples themselves were often either useless, or just flat-out wrong. The Java code was not only completely extraneous, it was hideously bad, throwing out any semblance of style or normal coding conventions. The XML grammar itself was presented in difficult-to-read snippets of BNF notation, which is an incredibly irritating way to try to learn new concepts. I think the author must have been cutting and pasting from the w3c spec.

It doesn't even seem worth pointing out that much of the information in the book is long out of date.

Just unspeakably wretched. Buy any other XML book, or buy none. You'd be better off.

Great book and I too was looking for those listings.
Found them on sams webpage. Search for the author (ashbacher), you'll find one reference (to this book and its listings in the download section).

After having bought a few of the 24 hours books I have learnt they are not all equal. This one I have found mostly easy to read, despite others comments. There are a number of typos, even in the code, which does cause some headaches. But smart reading will notice them, the code is pretty much repeated with minor changes in every chapter.

Probably the biggest problem I encountered was at first the book demonstrated a long and painful JavaScript way of making sure an XML file was loaded properly. I had to change this to accomodate a failure to retry rather than just fail first time. Thankfully my JavaScript knowledge is advanced, knowing some JavaScript is definitely needed with this book. Later in the book this is dropped as code but the easier option is never mentioned of using the simple line "DataSource.async = false". I found this myself on the net somewhere.

SAMS have no downloads for this book. All code must be typed in yourself. Searching on the ISBN results in nothing. Searching on the title results in only finding the second edition. And the downloaded files for this obviously don't even come close to matching.

I know everyone who has rated this book had mentioned the typos. But, isn't this a major problem? This is a teaching book. If the examples won't work without the reader having to edit the copy as they are trying to learn, it seems to defeat the purpose of book.

Also, the exercises are a bit monotonous. How about some varied content with a wider range of examples. After a while, examples started bleeding together when I went back to review previous lessons.

I've purchased Sam's books in the past and been pleased. However, this one I should have skipped.

I just got this book because it met my need to learn XML. My review at the bookstore was confirmed as a purchase because the book seem easy to read and could get me through learning this application pretty smoothly. I've bought other Sam's Publishing Teach Yourself series and really enjoy them.

However, when I got home, I needed the source code to do my exercises which the book advises they are available online at Sam's and also provided the author's email address. For the publishing company, they no longer support this book and source is not available. For the author, his mailbox is full and I am sitting here dreading having to type all that source code.

So if you want it, good luck, but be aware of my own deliemma. If you've got it and have the source code, let me hear from you.

Oh dear I wish I'd read these reviews before I bought this book; somehow I had the impression that the SAMs books where good introductions to subject.

Yes, there are typo's in the long sections of code that you have tp type in yourself - which is worrying.

Worse than that there would appear to be some major details missing from this book. I am stuck on chapter 2 now (I'm not a complete dimwit) as there would appear to be a major differenc between running xml files on your hard drive and running them online. The examples I am working do work when I test them on my pc - but when I uploa them to the web - nothing. I cannot even find the vaguest mention of any software/activeX controls I may need to install on my server to get the damn stuff to work.

Deeply infuriating - I'm going to take it back I think.

Messy. I have been reading lessons; I haven't got any big picture. I did not know why it worked like that. The only place I could look for "big picture" was usually lab, at the end of each chapter. This book also lacks reference to ADO.NET object and interface model which is essential in multi-database engine applications. The most disappointing part is so-called "advanced" web service programming. What author thought was advanced level was really a basic level...

I have found "Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft VB.NET" an invaluable tool in XML editor development. It is quite detailed about accessing and manipulating XML data.

I was reading it as first book for most of the topics, It was total waste of time to read it.

Might help if you are already well expreinced with .NET but not for beginner

Judging by the positive reviews, this book must have some merit but it is certainly not in the quality of its writing or its accuracy. Perhaps the editor was reassigned to Longhorn duties. Here are some examples of what you can expect in the first two chapters:

"A COM+ component exists in three states: exists and activated, exists and not activated, and nonexistent."

"The pool objects are not destroyed even after their release from the client application. COM+ retains the destroyed object in the pool for recycling..."

" If the value of the CanStop property is set to False, the SCM does not pass the Stop command to the service application."

It's main value to me is as a syllabus. You can use it to direct your search for better explanations on MSDN and, of course, everyone should have Troelsen's "C# and the .NET Platform" which is the best textbook I have read. Ever.

It is at a very basic level. It can be useful for starting in XML webservices, but not enough for the exam.
Some information is outdated.
It has errors. So does the practice test.
Doesn't cover at least one topic which is in the practice test.
The practice test doesn't tell you what is considered the correct answer.
If you find this book useful, you're not yet prepared for the exam.

I review and found the book is extremely useful for experienced programmer. The structure is confused but when I get used to, it became handful reference.

This was the first XML book I bought, I new less after trying to plogh through he book that I knew before. Misses the target.

Cheryl Kirk, aka, Lou K., wrote a review entitled, "I agree with the bad reviews - and I'm one of the authors!" on March 12, 2002.
Her review was more of a slam against her co-author, Natanya Pitts.
Read all of the editorial reviews and customer reviews before making your decision on whether or not to purchase this book.

This is not a good learning book or a good book to use as a reference. Each chapter was very disjointed and hard to follow. The examples and explaination were extremly lacking. The only reason I was able to put the parts together was by finding a web based tutorial that explained the concept better. I would not waste your money on this one.

This book is out of print, and it should be. It's an awful book, and I should know - I helped write it! If you are looking for a good book on XML, you could either try the second printing of this book, or a ton of others that are out now. I'm writing this review to tell everyone and anyone to save their money. (If you look at the other books I've written, you'll realize I write great books, and this was just a blip in the continum.)

So why was it so bad? Let me tell you the truth, without making excuses.

This book was written a LONG time ago, so it is VERY out of date. And I was a contract author that came in at the last minute, when the book, I presume, was in jeopardy. Another writer had jumped ship, and frankly I think the book had more problems before I even got involved. Why the lead author Natanya Pitts, didn't complete the book, I'll never know. But she didn't and I was hired and told to write more than 400 pages on the technology that had yet to have to be finalized. There were few if any tools for XML, Microsoft had yet to even release their parser, and the original XML spec hadn't even been finalized.

And I kept telling the lead editor at the time, it was just too soon to write a 'Black Book' on a technology that in essence was still being thought up. With the XML spec not even finalized, and other components like XLINK, XPATH, etc. not even part of the equation at the time, there really wasn't much to write about.

Then I tried to contact the lead author, get copies of the chapters she had written, and confer with her about the book, but to no avail. I never heard from her at all. When I did get her chapters thru the editor, it was only after I had turned the chapters I was assigned. That's why the book repeats itself so much, and is so dijointed. I basically had a list of chapters, and that was it. I didn't even get the TOC until much later! Then the editor kept telling me, write more, regardless of whether there was anything to write about. And there wasn't much to write about at the time, so it was a real stretch. In essence I was told write this many pages, regardless, and to do it within less than 2 months.

I learned a great deal about computer book publishing with this project. It wasn't about quality, it was about quantity. It wasn't about the reader, it was about getting a book out so the publisher could take advantage of the tide of interest in XML. From what I understand, however, things have changed at Coriolis and they realize their missteps.

But I still see other publishers, like Wrox, that seem to take that same approach, and I think it really hurts the computer book industry, but more importantly, hurts the reader.

I wouldn't give up on Coriolis (or any other publisher for that matter), since some of the Black Books are actually very good. But I would take the time to really check out a book before buying it, since series books aren't always written or controlled by the same editors or authors and quality can vary greatly. What I would do, however, is return bad books not only to the bookstore, but also the publisher directly. They need to know WHY a book didn't sell and what readers expect. Oftentimes publishers think a book fails because of other reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the book.

And until readers STOP buying ...thrown-together books, publishers will never learn! I certainly learned NEVER to work on a failing project like this one. My other books all have 5 star ratings and dealing with irate readers on this book (mainly because the lead author failed to even respond to anyone's email) made me realize how important the reader truly is...

If you are new to SOAP and you want to get the overall picture, and you don't care for details, this is the book you need.
If you need a reference guide, this is not the book you want.
If you're looking for a book about SOAP on a particular platform (say Java), this is not the book you need.

This book was a disappointment. I got thrown into an XML/SOAP project and had to get up to speed in short order. After struggling on my own for a while I bought this book hoping it would have lots of meat on actually using SOAP::Lite, but it had pretty thin coverage.

I did like the big-picture overview of the various technologies, but it was not very helpful in writing an actual SOAP client to talk to a third party's SOAP server. Considering that the author of SOAP::Lite also wrote this book, it seems to me that there could have been a whole chapter on SOAP::Lite from the client view.

This will stay on my shelf as a reference, but for getting up to speed rapidly on actually writing a SOAP client, it was a bust.

This book is a nice introduction to SOAP. It doesn't get caught in the Software wars and has examples of most existing systems. Another advantage: it is a thin book and not a 1000 pages bible. So you can easily read it in a weekend and then decide where you want to dig deeper (if necessary).

If your pretty new at SOAP, and if you need an overview, then this is the book you want.
If you don't care about interoperability, and you just want a book on SOAP within a particular environment (say Java), then this is not the book you want.
If you need a reference guide, then you don't need this book.

I was so keen to learn from this book, but no matter how hard I tried it had too much nonsense to be readable or usable.