XML Complete

Rating:
Summary: Don't DO IT! Your mind will shatter.
Review: There is something to be said about a book that causes you real, physical pain.

I am not a novice to the world of web-authoring, and I have read many instructional guides before, but of all the books I have had the pleasure of reading, this is the only one that has challenged my will to live.

The first chapter alone is so bewilderingly confusing that I had a hard time keeping my sanity. Billing itself as an introduction to XML, the first chapter was filled with references to advanced XML topics, explaining that certain tags, rules, etc depended greatly on such-and-such a factor that "we will explain in Chapter 10, 14, 13" or what have you. That is to say that the introductory chapter relied on understanding of LATER chapters to explain fundamental elements.

HELLO!! Authors, take note: put the horse before the carriage.

By the time I reached page 24, my fragile mind was so encumbered trying to remember references to the DOM, XSL, and what have you, that I couldn't remember what it was that I was supposed to be learning. A puddle of thick drool had collected under my mouth, and my glazed, vacant eyes peered at the hazy words in front of me, listlessly searching for some semblance of a TEACHING STRATEGY.

Worse yet, the author of the first chapter was hopelessly lost in purile computer-culture humor, with countless examples of tags such as foo, foobar, etc, and examples of coding which used topical phrases from the preceding paragraphs.

Concepts were defined using definitions that relied on MORE ADVANCED concepts. Such remarkable sentences as "This is because of the way the DOM functions, but we will learn about that later." ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? If we learn about it LATER how am I supposed to understand it NOW?

I got to chapter 3 and considered suicide.

I recommend buying another book, perhaps one by O'Reilley.

I give this book 2 stars ONLY because it is extremely affordable, and I have a hunch that once I learn XML this will be a good reference. Don't buy this book to learn XML.

I have to go scrub off the filth now.

Rating:
Summary: Hodge-podge!
Review: This book is a cut-n-paste from numerous other Sybex books. Skip it! Buy the other books ... this one jumps all over the map, often referring to other books or chapters ahead in the current book. Very annoying and a difficult way to learn!

Rating:
Summary: XHMTL Newbies Beware!
Review: This was my first XML book. Reason? It's two inches thick and the most inexpensive I could find. Only after I bought it did I realize that it's an anthology of snippets from other Sybex titles. That's the reason they can sell it at a lower price (apart from the fact that it uses newsprint). Also the reason why I couldn't find the author's name on the cover!

As for quality it's good enough for XML newbies (like me). The basics are all there in the first few chapters. It covers a lot of ground including namespaces, DTDs, schemas, and other stuff I haven't even begun reading.

It even includes practically everything you need to know to author in XHTML, which is practically nil if you already are HTML savvy. Advice to the HTML-aware designers: Don't get gypped into purchasing XHTML books. Invest your hard earned money in XML titles instead, preferably from O'Reilly. Me, biased?

After reading the first hundred pages and grasping the main concepts you can begin authoring in XML (usually with some help from other XML books). If you want to see your XML files rendered by a browser you'll have to get Netscape 6.x or better yet whatever the current Mozilla build is... I don't recommend Opera not even the latest version (6.01) since its CSS support is not as complete. Moreover, Opera processes JavaScript codes approximately a hundred times slower! than Internet Explorer. As for IE my version IE5.5 only displays the XML parse tree.

ATTENTION! There's one unforgivable blunder by the Sybex editors: They've included XHTML chapters from its _Mastering XHMTL_ without having them properly reviewed! Even as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has deprecated (a euphemism meaning on death row and marked for execution without a shred of hope for amnesty or pardon)) a good number of (X)HTML elements the book still continues to promote their use by teaching readers how to implement them. Although time and again the authors say use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is recommended they merely pay lip service to their own tips and tell beginners how to set color using bgcolor, font faces using the font element, etc, rather than devote those same pages to introductory CSS. This totally defeats the purpose of XML and the objectives of W3C.

To those who are just about to step into world of web design and those who are switching from HTML to XHMTL: Go for XHTML Strict immediately and use CSS exclusively to instruct browsers how to render your pages. That's the correct way to do it. A properly marked up document should *not* contain instructions for its presentation (e.g. display on your monitor).

To Sybex: Pull this edition out and get those XHTML chapters revised immediately! You're teaching beginners how to start off on the wrong foot!

Rating:
Summary: Don't DO IT! Your mind will shatter.
Review: Written poorly. This book is not for everyone. The author of the first chapter refers mercilessly to later chapters over and over again, defining introductory concepts using advanced terms. How many times the phrase "you need to remember this now, but we will not cover it until chapter 10, 11, 13" whatever occurs.

My mind was shattered on the examples, which use inside computer-humor as examples (tags named foo, foobar, etc) of xml tags. How about using something the average reader can relate to, such as "textcolor" or perhaps "smallfont?" Oh no, all we get is random.tag, foobar, and other touchstones which are useless to a reader not part of the subculture.

I really wish I had not purchased this book. I give it two stars because I think it will be later as a reference once I have actually learned XML. Until then, this book will remain in a box, and if I could, I would return it for another book.