Rating: 
Summary: Not suitable as teaching text
Review: Please allow me to speak out in a straight way about the book since I think it is necessary to do it. I chose this book for my XML course of computer science major. During the course of my teaching, I have kept finding many vague and deficient concepts, few practical guides in each chapter, errors in codes, which are not fully tested, and not well-organized conceptual structures in the book. I am sorry to say that I don't think the book should be seen as professional book because it does NOT go deep enough in any chapter that a professional needs. But the book provides many reference links, and it gives you a broad talk about XML and some related applications.
Rating: 
Summary: ugly faces
Review: please take the ugly faces off the books. this is not tabloid
Rating:
Summary: Too many irons in the fire
Review: The book covers too many topics and just few are developed in deep while others are superficially introduced because not yet standardized at the time of print. The book claims it covers the following topics: XML, XSLT, DOM, DTD, SOAP, XLink, XPointer, XPath, WAP, WML...and more; but just XML, Schemas, DTDs and SOAP could almost fit the book's size. Chapters don't follow a very logic thread and it doesn't deal enough with very relevant subjects. Wrox probably planned to make this book the XML bible but I think they are far from the target.
Rating:
Summary: gets the point across, but too wordy and poorly edited
Review: The book does an effective job of explaining XML concepts. I have no prior experience in XML (some HTML, though), but the book is understandable. I do have to reread some sections which are poorly phrased or poorly explained. As with another Wrox book that I've used, Professional XML is far too wordy. The book isn't well edited either. Its twelve authors repeat coverage of some material in different chapters. All in all, it's an okay book, but I prefer the O'Reilly books to the Wrox ones.
Rating: 
Summary: The best book ever written about XML
Review: The book is not only for the ones that know XML, but also for rockies, because it is very well explained and it covers every detail. So, even the complex matters become easy to understand and accesible. The book has many examples in each chapter and summaries and recommended readings for every chapter. For someone that deals with XML, this book is a must.
Rating:
Summary: Good but too MS
Review: The book is pretty good but don't think you'll get too much Java with XML. This book focuses more on MS technologies, the examples uses JScript and ASP so if you're a Java man it's not very worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: A Good book to learn XML technologies
Review: The book provides good understanding of XML technologies and basics, but falls short on applying the technologies. I am an IT professional with wide experience in systems architect and design - and I was looking for a book which would give me an insight and more complete explaination to application of technologies. But this book is for explaning the technology and not applying it, as it falls short when talking about design and architecture requriements for open systems.
Rating: 
Summary: Good reference book!
Review: The first book I read that give me ideas of what I can do with XML. This is more a reference than a tutorial but this is what I was looking for.
Rating:
Summary: Useful introduction
Review: The XML declarative language, with its adaptability and expressive power, is continuing to become the language of choice for reporting and classifying information. XML is a formal grammar that captures the syntactic features of a document type definition, and its properties, syntax, and applications are discussed effectively in this book. It covers XML as formalized by the W3C and the authors show how to use XML in Web-based and database applications. Readers who have developed applications in HTML will probably view XML as somewhat more abstract, since the visual representation of the content of a document is not emphasized in XML. Readers are expected to have a background in HTML, JavaScript, Java, and ASP in order to read the book. Although XML can be learned by reading the W3C specifications, these documents are frequently difficult reading, and this book makes the learning of XML much easier than reading these specifications. They include the W3C specifications for XML 1.0 in an appendix to the book for the interested reader. The book is a little dated, since the W3C has been updating XML specs since the time of publication (especially with regard to schemas), but there is a 2nd edition coming out soon. In Chapter 1, XML is introduced as a mark-up language and its inherent extensibility emphasized. This is followed by a detailed treatment of XML syntax in the next chapter, with emphasis placed on the hierarchical nature of XML. The authors do include a discussion of Processing Instructions (PIs) for users who want to use XML in this fashion. Document Type Definitions (DTD) are the subject of Chapter 3, where the authors communicate effectively how DTDs formal grammar is used to specify the structure and permissible values of XML documents. The formal DTD structure is discussed, and the principles behind writing DTDs are effectively outlined. They also discuss the problems with using DTDs. Data modeling with XML is discussed in the next chapter, with information modeling via static and dynamic models treated in detail, and the authors carefully distinguish these two approaches. The actual designing of XML documents is given a nice overview as well as the role of schemas in XML. This is followed in Chapter 6 by a discussion of the (tree-based) Document Object Model, which overviews how XML documents can be accessed by various programs. Some helpful examples are given on how the DOM can be used to create an XML document programmatically. An alternative way of processing an XML document is discussed in the next chapter on the (event-based) SAX interface. The authors outline in detail the benefits of using SAX rather than DOM. In Appendix B the reader will find the Internet Explorer 5.0 XML DOM 1.0 W3C specifications. In addition, in Appendix C, the specification for the SAX 1.0 interface is given. The shortcomings of DTD are addressed in terms of XML Schemas and namespaces in chapter 7. Since this book was published, XML Schemas have reached W3C recommendation status as of Nov 2000. The authors give a good overview of namespaces and schemas, with helpful examples. This is followed in chapter 8 by a discussion of how to link and query into XML documents using the XML information set, XLink, XPath, XPointer, XML Fragment Interchange, with XLST covered in the next chapter. For database applications, the authors outline the differences between relational databases and XML documents. A very detailed treatment of how XLST transforms the source document is given, and the authors compare XLS and DOM transformations. An Internet Explorer XSL reference is included in one of the appendices of the book. More details on the relationship between databases and XML is the subject of chapter 10, wherein the authors show how to store XML and how data can be communicated between different servers using XML. The issues involved when moving data from RDBMS to OODBMS or from Oracle to Sybase, are discussed by the authors. This is followed by an interesting discussion on how to use XML as a distributed component model for server-to-server communications via XML-Remote Procedure Call and Simple Object Access Protocol. E-commerce applications are discussed in the next chapter, with EDI and its improvement via XML. The business markup language cXML , which allows business to business electronic commerce transactions across the Internet, is also treated in detail. The authors then finally discuss how to render XML documents more readable and pleasing for the viewer in the next chapter using the style languages CSS and XSL. The discussion is really interesting, for the authors dig a little deeper into the foundations of style languages. The discussion of style languages as rule-based languages is particularly illuminating. The next chapter is very interesting and its inclusion is actually very surprising, namely a discussion of the Wireless Application Protocol. The authors give an introduction to the Wireless Markup Language and WMLScript. The book ends with four useful chapters on case studies for data duality, distributed applications, a book catalog information service, and SOAP. There are many applications of XML in many different areas, such as CellML (proprietary) used in cell biology, CML (Chemical Markup Language) for molecular chemistry, IML (Instrument Markup Language) for control of laboratory equipment, BSML (Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language) for gene sequencing, and MathML for formatting of mathematical equations. I find XML an extremely powerful approach to information reporting and I am currently developing a package called NMML (Network Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in simulation and mathematical modeling of networks, and FMML (Financial Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in the modeling of financial instruments. This book, along with the W3C specifications, has been a tremendous help in the development of these applications.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Content but poor Examples
Review: This book covers XML and the related Technologies reasonably in depth but the examples are disappointing. Most of the chapters in this book use one XML file, I repeat, just one file! - a "book catalog" to base the examples. And some of them revolve around a similar file - again related to "book catalog". The book also contains yet another unfocused chapter from the authors of Pro. XML with servlets and JSP. A web portal to buy stamps of a couple of European countries using US currency 8-< If you are looking for some case studies of applications that use XML, buy Applied XML Solutions.
| 
