Inside XML
Inside XML by Steven Holzner
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Number of Pages:
- 1152
- ISBN:
- 0735710201
- Product Group:
- book
- Publisher:
- New Riders
- Publication Date:
- Nov. 21, 2000
- BooksForGeeks.com ID:
- 2566
Intended to be the only XML book you need, Inside XML covers everything from creating and defining XML documents, including document-type definitions and what you use them for, to using them in your apps as well as looking at some Web-specific implementations. Producing an XML document is only the start, you need to be able to use it in your programs and this book covers handling XML with JavaScript or with Java, using XML's document model or with SAX--the Simple API for XML--which is easier to use than parsing the entire document tree.
XML is about displaying information as well as managing it and there is a section on how to display XML in a browser with XML style sheets (CSS) or with XSL. XML transforms one type of document into another; a powerful feature Inside XML makes it easy to master.
If you want to learn how to use XML and what to do with it, this is the book for you, covering both Microsoft and non-Microsoft XML tools. It's full of detail with plenty of code samples and links to relevant Web pages and tools. A huge book, that is clearly written and well arranged, it's up-to-date enough to cover XML schemas and also looks at some of the XML standards that are starting to appear, from XLinks and XPointers to XHTML, so it will be useful for some time to come. And it finishes with a look at the Vector Markup language designed to use XML to handle graphics, and WML (best known from WAP phones). This book really does cover everything you could want to know about XML. --Penny Jannifer
Reviews for Inside XML
-
XML How-To
Rated out of 5 stars, December 12st, 2003
This is an excellent, well written and easy to follow how-to on XML. As a novice to XML this book has so far provided me with all i need to know. If you only buy one book, make it this one!! -
XML made simple
Rated out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2003
XML isn't a complex idea but as you would expect there is devil in the detail. I've already worked through some great online tutorials and bought the XML Spy Handbook. They are good but this book is excellent.Having only recently received the book I'm still working through it but already some subjects that were still a little foggy are crystal clear. I'm a good developer but I'm not a computer science graduate so language is often an issue for me in techie books. Steven gets his explanations just right - so long as you can ignore Americanisms like 'gotten' ;-) Want to know about XML? Buy it.
-
Comprehensive, but too much bloat.
Rated out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2002
This does a good job presenting XML, but contains too much extra bloat.To begin with, skip chapter 6 and chapter 10 those belong to other books. Don't include loads of references to web pages in the book as these URLs probably doesn't work in a year or two and as such they only make the book larger.
Then why print the XML specification at the end of the book? Usually the specification is something you want to have up-to-date. This is what I hate too about the O'Reilly "In a nutshell" books, as they usually devote 50% of the book to some stupid index, which is a lot more practical to have in hypertext downloaded straight from the Internet.
Also this book has the tendency to assume the reader is an idiot which is quite the opposite compared to books I usually read (I'm a math major at the Helsinki University of Technology). The problem is that if you're an experienced programmer, it's very hard to use this book to quickly get started as the amount of pages makes it hard to read the whole material in a few days.
It's quite funny that only the theoretical literature about computer science present the material in a short and concise manner. The rest assume that you've never programmed before or don't have a brain and still the books are labeled to be targetted to "professionals".
-
Stop here ...
Rated out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2001
... if you are looking for a book on XML. Everything you are looking for is here, no doubt about it. Complete, easy to read, for novice and pro as well. -
Great XML Book
Rated out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2001
Definitely the best XML book I've seen so far. I've looked at a number of different books but somehow none seemed to cover enough ground or have useful practical examples.This book covers everything, and I especially like the fact that it covers the Microsoft and Non-Microsoft approaches. Also it's pretty well up to date and has useful examples through and fairly decent explanations of the various XML technologies.
Like other New Riders books I've got, this one is well presented with hardly, if any typos...it's definitely worth investing in if you really want a good XML reference.