Professional XML

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Learning XML
Review: Awesome "self-teach" book. I've been programming for years, but was new to XML and needed to start using it in my applications, so I had just the very basic concepts of what XML was before I started reading. This book is very complete, gives tons of practical examples and guidelines, and provides many external references. This is the ONLY book you will need to learn XML effectively on your own.

As others have stated here, the only real downside to the book is that it repeats many concepts more than once, so it is NOT the best choice for a reference book.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: For experienced XML developers, the book may be useful as a reference. However, I cannot recommend it as a tutorial. The book goes into far too much arcane detail about subjects such as character sets (UNICODE, etc...), entity and attribute naming conventions, and so forth; while giving examples somewhat short shrift. It does not develop topics from the simple to the complex - rather, it examines each topic in mind-boggling detail, with the result that one has not digested the basics of a topic before being overwhelmed with the specifics.

Perhaps as I gain experience with XML this book will become more useful, but for now I'll be looking for a more basic reference.

Sean

Rating:
Summary: Where can I find the source code?
Review: Hi, All

I bought the Professinal XML 2nd editon and quite like it so far. However I could not download any source code form www.wrox.com anymore, would anyone help to tell me where I can find a complete copy of the source code? Could some one help to email me one? My email address is [e-mail]. I really appreciate your help.

Rating:
Summary: I need exmple source code!
Review: I bought the book,but I can't download source code from www.wrox.com now ,anyone can help me? My email is [e-mail],can somebody email me the exmple source code?Thanks a lot!

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide to programmers
Review: I could find all XML releated subjects in the topics of this book i.e. XML syntax, Document Type Definitions (DTD), data modeling, Document Object Model (DOM), Simple API for XML (SAX) 1.0, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), , namespaces, schemas, linking, XML--database integration, server to server transfers, eBusiness applications, and SOAP.

It is very usuful for beginners and some advanced programmers in XML. Thanks to authors for this collabrative study.

Volkan Evrin

Rating:
Summary: unsurpassed xml guide
Review: I have bought several xml books and this one has educated me, taught me and interested me the most. There's no doubt the Wrox technical books are a match to the Oreilley in terms of readability and thoroughness. This book is a little peculiar in that it is written by several people, each contributing a separate chapter. As an introduction, it probably wouldn't be too helpful (although that wouldn't be a problem for someone with a programming background). The strengths of the book (at least what I've read so far) is the discussion of sax v. dom, the section on business applications on edi (really interesting for me), and the great reference source in the back. Can you believe I have xeroxed the css list of command options in the back--amazingly useful? The variety of writers give a fresh perspective, which can be bad and good. With the exception of the first few chapters, which give a good overview, the rest of the chapters are a grabbag of subjects, including 4 case studies. These were very useful in learning xml. It also discussed WAP, which may or may not be useful, depending on how much enthusiasm there is for that standard. For variety's sake, I also bought, XML Unleashed, a bulky book with not as much organization, but just a lot of code (unlike the professional xml book, which really explained almost everything well). XML unleashed is helpful, because its topics really don't overlap with professional xml. It discusses SMIL, parsing xml with java xml tools on the market, using asp with xml and different subsets of xml (vml, and a variety of other specialized languages specific to one discipline. Unleashed is good because it contains discussions (albeit rather brief) of several different languages. Professional XML sticks to explanations and analysis, a lot of microsoft stuff (but not asp, and not too much stuff that linux lovers would want to reject the book. Finally I want to mention another book which I used as a first tutorial, Just XML by John Simpson. It's the best written of the three, although a little bizzare humor sometimes. It was written in late 1998 so some things may not be up-to-date (however simpson does a good job of emphasizing the things that weren't likely to change). This would be a good book for people starting, or if the book were available used. It would also be good when simpson publishes the second edition (later this year).

Rating:
Summary: BORING BOOK
Review: It is easy to tell that this book was written by 12 different authors. The quality and writing style of each chapter varies widely. I thought the chapters on XPath, XSLT, DOM, SAX2, and SOAP were well written, but I was disappointed by some of the others.

The chapter on XML Schemas was the worst, in my opinion. This is a very important subject, but it is given the same amount of space as much less important topics. As a result, the author of this chapter tries to cover too much in too little space and ends up being quite confusing. Examples are thrown out followed by only partial explanations, and the author forgets to do some basic things like showing a sample XML document to match the sample XML Schemas in the examples. If you need to understand XML Schemas, skip this chapter and go directly to "Professional XML Schemas," which is very well written book on the subject.

This book is also too large and attempts to cover too many obscure topics. For example, it wastes a chapter on "XML Schema Alternatives" when it is clear that XML Schema is the approach that will be used by almost everyone going forward.

Finally, my standard complaint about all WROX books is that the font they use is too small! I feel like I'm reading a telephone book. Give the readers a break by taking out some of the less important chapters and increasing the font size.

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: Total crap
Review: This book is awful. I can't believe my college used it as a text. this book stuffers the same problems as every other Wrox Press book. It sucks. It's over written because obviously a book with more pages is informative, it's rushed to press, as you can tell by having to have 13 or so authors pound it out practically over night. The book doesn't cover anything well it's written poorly, so poorly eventually I just started skipping around and defacing the book in class. It's amazing I've only owned 2 or 3 other books this bad and honestly their all Wrox Press that Red Cover is a big stop sign. AVOID THEM ALL THEIR ALL CRAP

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book for XML Certification . . .
Review: This is a good book for IBM XML 141 certification. I passed my certification largely due to this book. The book covers a lot of ground and is an absolute must for the certification.
Also it covers not only XML but also a lot of other related technologies like XPath, XQuery,XSLT, XLink, XPointer, Databases and XML, SOAP, UDDI and WSDL etc.
Overall I think it is worth every penny and is a book I want in my XML book shelf. However one minor drawback of the book is the large number of authors.