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Rating: 
Summary: Wrox Press has gone out of business
Review: According to an e-mail I recieved from Wiley, "Wrox Press Book Company was liquidated in the Spring and no longer exists. The books were sold to various companies. Wiley acquired only 34 of the over 350 books and the rights to the www.wrox.com website address. You'll find the complete list of books currently available from Wiley/Wrox Press at http://www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml "This book is not on that list. That means that the publisher no longer provides support for it, and it will probably never be updated. I bought this book because it was one of the very few books available that covers using XML in Visual Basic. Altho not the easiest book to follow, it does contain a great deal of useful information. Unfortunately, both VB and XML are changing rapidly, and the information is getting out of date fast. By the way, don't even bother sending in the registration card that comes with this book. Wiley didn't renew the business reply permit, so the card will just bounce back in the mail.
Rating: 
Summary: Still a very usefull book
Review: Although Microsoft has moved on to VB.net, many developers are still using VB6. It has become increasingly hard to find VB6 XML info on, say, MSDN, so a book like this is essential. The code examples are clear and practical. The book manages to work well both as a how-to and a reference. If I were to nitpick, there are two things would mention. First, because of when the book was published, it does not cover the most currenrt version MSXML. However, porting the code samples to newer versions of the DLL is quite easy. Second, the book does not come with a CD. An HTML or PDF version of the book, with a searchable index, would be sweet. Overalll, though, this is a good deal if, like so many, you are still working with VB6.
Rating:
Summary: Excellently Specialised.
Review: Not everyone has hitched their bandwagon to the Java steamroller and it is a pleasure to see that quality specialist guides are still being developed for VB. The introduction and coverage of XML is excellent and its interface with VB explained in great detail. As well as being an informative read the index is comprehensive already making my copy of the book a well thumbed reference. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Not much of use in this book
Review: This is one of only two books on the market presently that attempt to describe how you can integrate XML into your VB project. The only chapters I found useful, however, were 1 through 3. This book alone was insufficient to teach me the basics of XML and how I could integrate it with my VB project. I had to do a great deal of research on the Web to supplement the information provided in this book. The authors quote extensively from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which can be read directly and more up-to-date on the Web. The most useful information I derived from this text was the introduction to XML covered in Chapter 1 and the understanding that there are two ways to parse XML in a VB project: using either the Document Object Model (DOM) or Simple API for XML (SAX). The authors describe how to use the Microsoft XML parser (MSXML), and at the time this book was written, MSXML supported only the DOM. As of July 2000, however, it also supports SAX. Therefore, the text covers only MSXML's support of the DOM interface. The editing of this book is sloppy, so it was a challenge to match the references in the text to what actually appears on the accompanying CD. Once I located the appropriate files, however, I did find it useful to work through the DOM examples. The SAX examples, though not supported by the MSXML at the time (I had to download a third-party tool to work through the examples) were useful insofar as I gained a clear understanding of the differences between manipulating XML using the DOM and SAX interfaces. Once I mastered XML, I haven't found any need to reference this book again.
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