Real World XML Web Services: For VB and VB .NET Developers

Rating:
Summary: If you buy one book on XML Web Services...
Review: ....get this one I can't think of a better book on Web Services, even if you aren't a VB developer. Yasser puts together just the right mix of theory, technical data, and real-world examples.

For a book that's only about 500 pages, he packs in an incredible amount of good information. Not only will you learn (and actaully understand SOAP), but you'll learn all about important topics like interface-based Web Service development and Web Service interop using non-MS SOAP APIs.

It's great material for both begineer and veteran alike. Run and buy it now!

Rating:
Summary: If you buy one book on XML Web Services...
Review: ....get this one I can't think of a better book on Web Services, even if you aren't a VB developer. Yasser puts together just the right mix of theory, technical data, and real-world examples.

For a book that's only about 500 pages, he packs in an incredible amount of good information. Not only will you learn (and actaully understand SOAP), but you'll learn all about important topics like interface-based Web Service development and Web Service interop using non-MS SOAP APIs.

It's great material for both begineer and veteran alike. Run and buy it now!

Rating:
Summary: XML Web Services: For Developers
Review: Excellent book. Makes everything easy. A chapter on XSD types makes more sence then some thick books on the topic. Lots of usefull examples and utilities on the CD. Very well written with "professional" attitude: nothing redundand, pure essence. Same level as "Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed" - my favorite book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I need not say more. Its the best book I have read on web services.

Rating:
Summary: I like Yasser's writing style
Review: The best development books are those that are written by developers. By this I don't mean the people who were used to be a programmer 20 years ago. Yasser is a hardcore developer and I have seen his name in many places including the specification for Web Services Basic Profile 1.0A. So I was not surprised by seeing such a fantastic book from him.

Rating:
Summary: A genuinely good book
Review: The term 'web services' has been bandied around so long without anything the general public has seen to show for it, they probably shouldn't be blamed for wondering if it's anything more than vapourware. As developers of course, just the increase in system interoperability is enough to warrant continuing research time into the topic, and with Microsoft, IBM, Sun and a host of others backing web services, it's not going to go away.

As a DevelopMentor branded book, Yasser's tome seemed as good a place as any to start learning about web services and I'm happy to say that it doesn't disappoint. Even though I'm a C# fan and his examples are exclusively in VB .NET or VB6, the text is easy to follow and packed with useful information and tips obviously gained from lengthy immersion in the subject.

Chapter 1 is a quick introduction to the web service base platform, the standards it comprises, how they've been derived and how to write your first web service. It concludes with a short piece on when and when not to use web services. Essentially just an introduction to topics that are covered in the rest of the book, it's a quick 101 on the subject.

Chapters 2 to 4 look in greater depth at three of the standards that make up the base platform - XSD, SOAP and WSDL. At 160 pages for the three topics, they are unsurprisingly covered in great detail and in a clear manner that leaves you with only thoughts of what to write first instead of the questions the chapters haven't answered. Sometimes the answers are in between the lines for you to figure out yourself but they are there.

With the base technologies out of the way, Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate its two 'web service toolkits', the SOAP Toolkit for COM developer and the .asmx functionaltity that's part of ASP.NET. The COM chapter is particularly good, working through both high and low-level APIs in some detail but without forgetting that it's introducing readers to something new and assuming prior knowledge.

Chapters 7 to 9 build on the platform built in chapter 6, teaching us how .NET allows us to work with SOAP Headers and Faults, and how to move data around with web services using ADO .NET. These two subjects are separated by a look at how we can use a WSDL document and the wsdl tool in .NET as a start point to create both an abstract service implementation and service proxies for our clients.

Again these are good chapters, especially the one on ADO.NET, but the other two seemed a little isolated. SOAP Headers are vital to the growth of web services and SOAP Faults are necessary for exception handling, but the discussion seemed to exist in its own small chapter simply because it didn't fit anywhere else. Why not expand the discussion to include or at least give a hint as to the headers that will be standardized soon. Likewise, in a chapter which talks about interface generation from a WSDL document, why not also mention the automatic generation of classes from the schema inside the WSDL file? A missed opportunity, but not one that really detracted from the chapter as a whole.

Finally in Chapter 10, we learn how to extend the .NET web service platform using SOAP Extensions. This is the most challenging chapter of the book, but again it's explained well and Yasser provides some really good examples here to illustrate every point he makes.

UDDI is the topic for Chapter 11. Like chapters 2 to 4, this chapter looks at the surface of UDDI (what it is, typical usage scenarios, how to publish service info to a UDDI server), but quickly heads underneath to work through its main data structures and demonstrate how to use the UDDI API. This chapter was the biggest eye-opener for me, although the level of its discourse fluctuated throughout which sometimes annoyed.

Last but one, Chapter 12 looks very practically at the key to web service - interoperability - by taking a few of the other SOAP Toolkits available today (COM, Java, DHTML) and trying to create clients on the .NET services already created in the book. There's a neat discussion for each kit, noting any difficulties that might be encountered when working cross-kits, although quite naturally there's only a taster here on this subject rather than a full exposé which would take another book.

Finally, Chapter 13 is a case study demonstrating the web service specific tools in Visual Studio .NET and the application of some of the concepts made plain in the rest of the book. The service is .NET and submitted to UDDI while the client is built in VB6. This was a nice wrap up to the book and a good way to finish up the other pieces of the puzzles (tools, procedures, code, etc) that hadn't been explained so far.

Overall, this is a very good book for .NET developers, for COM developers less so. The material is strong throughout and with only a few editorial quibbles and the overlarge body text font that irk, it's well worth the money and a recommended buy for web service developers, new and experienced. Even C# developers will get a lot out of it and the examples are reasonably simple to translate.

Rating:
Summary: This is THE book about XML Web Services for .NET developers!
Review: This book is very concise and clear. Don't care about the use of VB and VB.NET. If you are a managed C++ or a C# developer, you'll appreciate a lot the information on this book -in the same manner than a VB/VB.NET developer would. The title fits to the book perfectly: it's all about making XML WebServices to work in practice. It starts with the basics, covering in some depth XSD, WSDL and SOAP (chapters 2, 3 and 4) -very useful reading, really.

Chapter 5 talks about the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit. It's the less useful for me, but maybe for those wanting to publish COM components as Web Services this chapter is a must.

In chapter 6 the author explains you the basics of creating web services with .NET and the advantages of creating them with ASP.NET. Useful topics such as data caching, distributed transactions, namespaces and parameter encoding are covered in a very straight-to-the-point manner. I loved this chapter, in spite that it's not very long. Chapter 7 follows, explaining how to use SOAP headers in your web service and your clients. There you'll learn how to easily extend your web service's calls with custom SOAP headers -which can be used to pass custom information between the client and the server. Very useful examples in VB.NET.

In chapter 8 the author explains how to implement interfaces in web services -even, how to implement more than one interface by a single web service. I've found this chapter to be a very interesting one, since I come from the COM world and I really wanted this feature of implementing multiple interfaces to be available in web services. I didn't know I could do this -although I had already tried to "patch" it with my own implementation.

Chapter 9 is worth the price of the entire book. After all, it talks about the main application of web services in practice: passing data between the client and the server. It explains how to pass DataSets, XML documents and object arrays, among other things.

In chapter 10 SOAP extensions are covered in depth. Authorization using SOAP extensions is explained there. This is a VERY useful chapter. On the other hand, chapter 11 covers UDDI. Great chapters, both of them! From chapter 11 I liked the topic "Publishing Your Web Services with UDDI" a lot.

Chapter 12 goes into some details about interoperating with other SOAP toolkits, including some issues you may find. If you intend to make a web service written in .NET easily callable from any client (Java client, or whatever), this chapter is a must.

Chapter 13 explains the steps for creating a web service, from design to implementation issues. It's a tad short, in my opinion. For example, topics such as Usage Accounting are barely covered.

Appenix B adds some useful information, including tips and tricks for .NET developers, and traps you should avoid when developing a web service.

The entire book is a must-have in your developer's bookshelf. It touches everything respect to web services, and I guess that this will be my preferred book on the topic for long time. Five stars, yes!

Rating:
Summary: Repetitive,disjointed and painful to read
Review: This is a good book but suffers from bad writing style.
The author uses many "and/or" clauses one is forced to
pause to understand what he is really attempting to say.
He also asks questions in the middle of an explanation.

For example on page 38 section 2.4.7 he says:
"An element doesn't need to have content;it may be empty. An empty element is an element that has no text content and no child elements. Would such an element be of complex or simple type? it depends; if the element has attributes it is of complex type. Note that attributes are not considered part of an element's content, therefore whether or not an element has attributes has nothing to do with whether or not the element is empty: an empty element may nor may not have attributes."

Does the author have to use 108+ words to tell us that an empty element is just that. Empty!
For example read his last sentence and see whether you understand what he is talking about.

He could simply state the last part: "an empty element may or may not have attributes" for us to understand. Where "therefore whether or not an element has attributes has nothing to do with whether or not the element is empty:" came from I have no idea!

I am not sure whether the author is affected by English as a second language or whether he bothered to understand what he was writing. In an attempt to simplify the content he ends up in verbosity and ruins what would have been a good book.

Overall if one can put up with long winded paragraphs it is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Real World XML Web Services is an AWESOME BOOK!!!
Review: Web Services. I can't believe there is anyone left alive in the technology sector that hasn't heard these two words. Everywhere you look there are articles, books, and web sites that talk about this technology. Do a book search for "Web Services" on amazon.com and you will be quite amazed how many Web Services books there are. With so many available picking one buy may seem overwhelming. The good news is it just got a little easier to do.

Real World XML Web Services is an absolute "must have" for anyone who wants to learn more about XML Web Services. Even if you are not a VB/VB.net developer you will find great value in this book. It goes into extensive detail, and will surely teach even more savvy Web Services folks a thing or two.

Because of the books detail level, I don't think that it is a first-read on the subject though. I think that someone who really doesn't know much about Web Services will be drowned in the detail (which is incredible). A person can get more out of this book by doing some tutorials, and experimenting with Web Services first. Then, after having a good base of understanding is when this book should be cracked.

Summary

Chapter 1. Introduction to Web Services.
This is a brief intro chapter that gives some history and background info about Web Services. Some of the overview consists of typical Web Service architecture, and when to use (and NOT to use) Web Services.

Chapter 2. XSD: The Web Services Type System.
Great chapter. Goes into the concepts of XSD. Topics include the XSD Type System, XSD and XML namespaces, authoring XSD Schemas, and a ton of information about XML Serialization.
.
Chapter 3. SOAP: Invoking Web Services.
This chapter covers what SOAP is, SOAP architecture, SOAP message formats, RPC with SOAP, and also covers error handling.

Chapter 4. Describing Web Services.
A chapter all about the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), which is the language used to describe Web Service interfaces. I liked this chapter a lot because Yasser does a great job of really illustrating and explaining it well. Clear, easy to follow examples are used to drive concepts home.

Chapter 5. The Microsoft SOAP Toolkit.
As you might have guessed, this chapter is all about using the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit to invoke and expose Web Services. If you would like to know more about the toolkit you will like this chapter. Exposing and invoking Web Services via the high and low-level API's is covered, as well as using header handlers to invoke and expose.

Chapter 6. .NET Web Services.
This chapter discusses creating .Net Web Services with Visual Studio .Net, as well as customizing the WSDL of the Web Service to meet your needs.

Chapter 7. SOAP Header and Fault.
All about SOAP headers and SOAP Fault. There is some great information about communicating errors in a common way so that any platform can get to it.

Chapter 8. Interface-Based Web Service Development.

Explains about Interfaces and the .Net Web Services world. Defining interfaces, implementing multiple interfaces, and programming against interfaces are some of the topics covered.

Chapter 9. Handling Data IN.NET Web Services.
This is a chapter that shows how to take data from many different types of sources and be able to manipulate it using XML Schemas, ADO.Net, and the XML Framework. Typed Datasets are also covered.

Chapter 10. Reusable Infrastructure with Soap Extensions.
This chapter teaches how to built a flexible and reusable infrastructure using SOAP extensions.

Chapter 11. UDDI: A Web Service.
This huge chapter pretty much tells us everything about UDDI that you could want to know. The chapter starts with an explanation of what it is and what it is made of. Then the chapter goes into different usage scenarios and various other UDDI topics. Programming, querying, and publishing Web Services with UDDI are just some of the other topics covered. This is an excellent chapter.

Chapter 12. Other SOAP Toolkits.
This chapter talks about Web Services Interop . Different clients are discussed including JAVA clients, VB 6 clients, and NET clients.

Chapter 13. A Web Service Walkthrough.
This chapter wraps up the book by walking the reader through building a Web Service. This is a great way to end the book as it ties together all the things that were discussed.

Appendix A: Data Type Mappings
Appendix B: .NET Web Services Tips and Tricks.

Two good appendixes that give us more information, as well as tips and tricks.

I give this book a 10 out of 10. Yasser did a fantastic job on it. Again, although I do not think this is a "first read" book on Web Services, I believe it is a "must have" Web Services book. Any developer that works with, or wants to work with Web Services will find it valuable.

Rating:
Summary: Second to none!
Review: Yasser is this kind of developers who make our world easier to understand and better to live in. This book is your "ONLY" guide to XML Web services. You will start understanding all about WS's from the second chapter (XSD: Type System). Yasser's approach to XML Web Services is all what you need to unlock the magic door of this great messaging world. Enjoy!