Rating: 
Summary: Great book (if it fits your expectations...)
Review: .Buy this book when: (1) You want to learn how to integrate XML in your Internet/Intranet-based infrastructure. (The title mentions 'Web Applications'... do not expect the book to focus on 'Web Sites'. It's more about XML as a storage mechanism, the secure exchange of XML messages over HTTP,...) (2) You value the insight in how experienced developers model their application (using Design Patterns, reusability, etc) (3) A very readable book. Do not buy this book when: (1) You're looking for information the latest implementations of XML Parsers, XSL Transformers (the book was published before XSL became 'established'), XML database servers,etc. (2) You're looking for complete, useful applications you can re-use 'straight-out-of-the-box'. (3) You're looking for information on XML as a way to manage the content on your web side.
Rating:
Summary: Decent book
Review: A bit old now that 3 internet years are gone. Otherwise deserve a five star. Yes, it's a bit old. Yes, it primarily covers xml4j and VisualAge. And yes, it assume some previous xml knowledge. But it is clean, readable and no-nonsense. If you are already familiar with XML and Java on their own but are looking for a book to really help start Java-XML. This is the book for you. Flip through the ~300 pages (others are appendice) and you are there! BTW, xml4j and the more popular Apache xerces are pretty much the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Most valuable XML development guide I've found so far.
Review: Already understand the basics of both XML and Java? Looking for an application development guide to tie things together? Then this could be the book for you. The chapters on document construction, parsing with DOM and SAX, document conversion, and interfacing databases with XML applied directly to the server side content management framework we're developing. The clear and concise writing style employed by the authors is a bonus. This book isn't a comprehensive reference, and it doesn't include much information on writing stylesheets, DTDs, or emerging XML standards. But it does includes a comprehensive set of references from which you can obtain more information. The code samples on the CD are also unusually valuable. You can spend weeks or months digging for this information on your own, or you can save yourself a ton of money and time by purchasing this book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Java/XML books on the market
Review: Even if 9 different authors wrote this book, the logical flow remains intact and the writing style is consistent, clear and concise, without any redundancy. The authors provide plenty of well written, relevant code examples, almost to a level of a cookbook. I was very pleased to see some pretty advanced topics covered in details and, while the focus is on Xerces, JAXP get a good coverage too. In my opinion one of the best Java/XML books on the market
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of advanced XML for Java developer
Review: I found this book very useful, covers a lot of unique topics
in advanced XML processing, practical and to the point.
Especially enjoyed coverage of advantages and disadvantages
of different techniques. Would be nice to cover these topics a bit deeper,
little more on architecture.
How about making 3rd edition 1000 pages,
maybe without CD-ROM, put code online
(any XML/Java developer has Internet access now).
And Websphere and DB2 getting outdated very quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent update
Review: I had written a review on the 1st edition of this book, regarding it as an outdated early effort. Having read through the second edition and seeing that Amazon placed my earlier review on the 2nd one, I had to pull it down in all fairness to this updated version. I have to say that this book is now THE reference on XML from a Java standpoint. It starts with the basics of XML parsing with DOM and SAX and gradually progresses towards more advanced topics such as XSLT transformations and integrating XML with servlets, JSPs, and Enterprise JavaBeans. It even covers the more recent web services UDDI and WSDL apis. The book is written in a down to earth style filled with code examples and based on one of the most widely used XML processors. This book can be of use both to beginners, as a step by step tutorial, and to more experienced developers as a quick reference. I definitely recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent update
Review: I had written a review on the 1st edition of this book, regarding it as an outdated early effort. Having read through the second edition and seeing that Amazon placed my earlier review on the 2nd one, I had to pull it down in all fairness to this updated version. I have to say that this book is now THE reference on XML from a Java standpoint. It starts with the basics of XML parsing with DOM and SAX and gradually progresses towards more advanced topics such as XSLT transformations and integrating XML with servlets, JSPs, and Enterprise JavaBeans. It even covers the more recent web services UDDI and WSDL apis. The book is written in a down to earth style filled with code examples and based on one of the most widely used XML processors. This book can be of use both to beginners, as a step by step tutorial, and to more experienced developers as a quick reference. I definitely recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry, but this book is no good for me
Review: I looked forward to getting this book, especially given good reports of it on the IBM alphaWorks site. However it is a towering disappointment. Its biggest problem is that it deals entirely with the v1 xml4j API. IBM are pushing xml4j v2 to the users, and the net result is that virtually NONE of the examples in the book actually work without rewriting the code to suit the very different way the new API works. NO PROBLEM, if you already know how the APIs work, in which case you don't need this book anyway. I bought the book in order to find out how to write Java code to read and write XML. I will not achieve this aim by reading this book. It would not be so bad if the authors had at least provided either a web site with updated examples for the v2 API, or contact email addresses so that people like me can chase down exactly what changes need to be made in order to match up the examples to the API. They did neither. Working with this book has been a truly frustrating business and I consider myself further behind in understanding than when I started. By the way, even when I went back to v1.1.9 of the API (the version they use) and followed their examples, I cannot get a good proportion of them to work.
Rating:
Summary: These reviews are for the 1st edition no the second one.
Review: I must be missing something but from what I can see a lot of these reviews in fact for the 1st edition and therefore a no longer applicable to this listing which is for the 2nd edition which IMHO appears to focus on opensource APIs more so that IBM's. It looks very different to the approach taken by the 1st edition that was written very early when XML was getting off the ground.
Rating:
Summary: Good one but not upto Data
Review: I read the book recently. Good one from Architect point of View but not upto date. Probably i would have got it a year back :-)
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