Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource on XML. Refreshingly different.
Review: When I got this book I already had quite a few XML books in my bookcase, all from Wiley, Addison Wesley, O'Reilly and yes, even Wrox... :-|

Being an IBM Certified Developer on XML, I know my way around the topic and this book certainly qualifies as a great addition to my collection. With all the numerous XML books out there that keep covering the same material, this book with its excellent content on the more specialized XML standards for B2B certainly is refreshing. So even if you know XML very well, you can learn a lot in this book.

Despite its average size the book covers a lot of topics, and the discussions are still very detailed while being concise and "to the point". There is little rambling here. The writing style is professional and interesting, and also include those personal insights that I appreciate in computer books. I like books by pros who use the stuff, not just write about it.

If you're a manager, analyst or some other less-technical IT worker who wants to know a lot more about XML itself as well as its B2B uses, you'll love it. It is technical and you'll have to get your hands dirty a little, but you'll finally be up to speed on XML & B2B and understand what people are discussing around you. Not only will it provide you with the much needed knowledge on XML, Internet transports and security, you'll get a lot on the B2B angle and help you in identifying which technologies and standards you should consider for your business.

Developers who know XML will have to expect some redundancy early in the book since there is a whole chapter on XML fundamentals. It can serve as a good recap, may cover some of the XML-related standards you might not know so well, but definitely paints a clear picture of how the whole range of XML stuff fits together in "El Photo Grande" (the big picture).

Unless you're an Internet protocols and transports guru, you'll learn some very valuable low-level stuff here and be better positioned to understand the impact of your designs. The chapter on security - one of the most critical topics in B2B - is very well explained and is an excellent intro to the various concepts, but you'll need a dedicated security book to truly achieve the necessary level of expertise that is required in the implementation of a B2B project.

Unfortunately, since the book introduces you to many topics and concepts but obviously cannot dig as deep as we'd always want (unless reading a 14-volume work), I would have expected the author to refer us to external resources and other books and he almost never does. There is also no bibliography so no help there either. With all the new concepts in there, a glossary would have been nice too, although there is a much welcome "Notes" section at the end with various references to terms and concepts found throughout the book. The companion website ...does offer references but they're mainly W3C sources (quite exhaustive though).

The best value of the book comes in part II with coverage on the various frameworks, vocabularies and standards in B2B XML such as ebXML, xCBL, cXML, RosettaNet, SOAP and BizTalk. Little of this appears in other books so you'll want to buy this one if only for that. You'll have to do more digging on the one standard you'll pick when comes the time to use these technologies in real-world scenarios, but at least here you'll be able to decide which way to go and why, and you'll be able to start prototyping too.

If you're an XML novice, the fundamentals chapter is nice but you'll want at least another XML book to gain any detailed and "hands-on" knowledge on the classic XML standards (XSL, XSLT, DTDs, DOM, SAX, XLink, XPointer, XPath, etc.) Allow me to recommend "Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers" and "XML Specification Guide" by Wiley, and "XML in a Nutshell" by O'Reilly as good starting points. Maybe you could even pick an XML book better adapted to your language since the B2B book strictly uses Java.

I don't mind the Java code throughout the book, even though I'm more of a VB developer. I hate books that provide examples in multiple languages since they waste space and end-up being confusing, and I understand how Java can be the best choice for the widest audience of XML developers. Anyways if you can't read Java code yet, you're probably in trouble already.

All in all an excellent book, I highly recommend it. You can expect the high level of quality that is so customary to Wiley books (and which seems to elude Wrox so often). It's cheaper than other Wiley books but still comparable in price to other publishers. Personally I would have preferred a thicker (even if pricier) book with deeper coverage but here you get a very good return on your money. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Kooool...
Review: XML,XML,XML everywhere.

Also, there are tons of RE-written w3c XML specs.
but this is different covering all practical subjects with some java codes.

Make sure, if you are a novice at XML, get another introductory book(like inside XML) first.