Product Description

The third edition of Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours, Complete Starter Kit is everything you need to know about the XML language and how to use it in practical, innovative applications. Understanding the syntax of XML is only a small part of the learning process; understanding how to apply it is the larger part of the learning process, and is the primary focus of this book. It covers a broad range of topics, and wil show you how to use XML to mine data on the web, how to use it to interact with existing data services such as iTunes and Google, and how to use it in applications such as e-books, online speech synthesis, and multimedia. Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours, Complete Starter Kit, Third Edition will teach you what you need to know to get up and running with XML and more importantly, how to do cool things with it!

Customer Reviews (3)

Easy introduction to XML
Fortunately I read this book before reading the two previous reviews. In the same way that no one should expect to be fluent in a foreign language after 24 hours, it takes longer to fully master XML. As an introductory text, Michael Morrison's "Learning XML in 24 hours" is accessible and personable. Maybe the other reviewers didn't appreciate his sense of humour, but his book is informative and fun.

Poorly written.
The reason for 1 star is that i cannot put zero stars.

The book tends to ramble on and on and is very light in actual examples that matter. The same concepts are repeated over and over again.

It could of used many more examples rather than blabbing on and on about the same thing. Yet, an entire chapter is dedicated to SVG? Not a very focused book.

Needs a lot of editing.

Whole heartedly not recommended.

worst ever xml book!
I'm only giving this 1 star because Amazon won't let readers give negative stars. The chapter that contains "a quick history of html" is so far off base, I wouldn't read the rest of this crappy book. The 'author' (I use that word very hesitantly) claims that HTML is 'a simplified version of SGML'. There was a bumpersticker in the early 70s that read "Question Authority", and boy! does it apply to this book! The book writer is NO authority on SGML nor on HTML, thus HOW could he be expected to be any kind of authority on XML? HTML is a DTD WITHIN SGML. It was not developed by 'physicists' to create 'web pages' but as part of Timothy Berners-Lee WWW project for collaborative sharing of documents. While it is true that Timothy began working on the pre-cursor to HTML while working as a junior programmer-consultant for CERN (which is a Physics lab) he was NEVER a physicist, but a designer of typographic-programs (at the time). BY THE WAY, XML is a SUBSET of SGML. SGML is NOT an 'overcomplicated' language, unless you happen to be a twit who can't program to begin with. That's like comparing VB to C. VB is for lazy programmers. C is a far more versatile programming language. It is the same with SGML. XML is to SGML like 'reader's digest' book versions are to the real book, or maybe like those synopsis books that kids used to use for book reviews of books they were too undisciplined and unethical to read.

Don't waste your money on this book, and maybe it's time to forget all about Sams ' in 24 hours' books. CR*P. ... Read more

Product Description

This book takes the reader from the architecture of .NET to real-world techniques they can use in their own Internet applications.The reader is introduced to .NET and Web Services and explores (in detail) issues surrounding the fielding of successful Web Services.Practical guidelines as well as solutions are provided that the rader may use in their own projects.Some of the issues involve lack of specific guidance in the SOAP specification, while others transcend SOAP and involve issues Internet developers have grappled with since the inception of the World Wide Web.At this time, this book has no competition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book on .NET and SOAP
Here's what you get in the book: you will learn how to use .NET in order to shape your SOAP messages. There's a lot to know and understand: manipulating XML, creating custom attributes, debugging, reading messages. This book covers all of those items in detail and has the code to save you time. The book tells me exactly what I needed to know in order to make better use of SOAP in my .NET applications. Kenn teaches this stuff for Wintellect and developed the course on this. It's also pretty clear that the day jobs for both these guys involves writing Web Services. When you are done with the book, you will understand all you need in order to write your own Web Services.

I read the two other reviews and I don't understand why the readers are complaining. SOAP is one way to do Web Services and is the only thing that the authors talk about in the entire book. Perhaps this reader has a problem with the fact that, for the most part, SOAP == Web Services? As for the horrible waste of time review, I again think that the person didn't really look at the book. This is the best book I have seen to date which describes how to mold your SOAP messages, write custom attributes, etc. These guys explain pretty well what SOAP is for. Better for Web Page scraping? I think that reviewer simply picked up a copy in a book store, read 2 pages, and that's it.

Good book, title could use some work
I really enjoyed this book but I think that the title was misleading. There was as much (or more) information about web services and .net as there was about soap.

Overall the book covered a broad set of topics and showed some good example code. If you're new to web services and soap, and you plan on using .net, this book will get you good coverage in a small amount of time. If you don't intend to use .net, there are still some interesting topics, but the sample code won't help much.

horrible waste of time
I received this book, hoping to get some inside clues on how SOAP is implemented in .NET. I was running into some more sophisticated needs. I found the book to be full of general fluff. E.g., at the beginning it brings this corny motivation for SOAP that it's a better way for web page scraping. It actually believes that SOAP was made to replace code opening yahoo financials pages, and scraping stock quotes out of it. Hello? SOAP works along EDI and Corba. It's a simplified version of both that makes it easier and language/platform independent for those cases that don't need the full functionality of EDI or Corba.

Well, then there is a quote, where the author blankly asserts that posts are more useful then gets. I'm familiar with the debate about the pros and cons. But, an author just asserting one is better and putting as a reason 'trust me, baby, I'm smart', is just so pretentious.

To put it plain from flipping around in the book, I didn't find any good information, and the author just disgusted me with his way of writing and assertions. This is a total utter waste of time and money. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is for anyone working with today's mainstream XML technologies. It was specifically designed to serve as a handy but thorough quick reference that answers the most common XML-related technical questions. It goes beyond the traditional pocket reference design by providing complete coverage of each topic along with plenty of meaningful examples. Each chapter provides a brief introduction, which is followed by the detailed reference information. This approach assumes the reader has a basic understanding of the given topic. The detailed outline (at the beginning), index (in the back), bleeding tabs (along the side), and the page headers/footers were designed to help readers quickly find answers to their questions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Great book
This is, as the title suggests, and essential reference book for XML.Topics from beginner to advanced are covered.Do note though, don't be fooled by the whimsical cover, this book is *dry*.It's not exactly a read-through type of book unless you're just really stoked about knowing everything it has to offer about XML.I would suggested scanning the table of contents, maybe reading some of the chapter or section intros to familiarize yourself with the technology and how it all interrelates and then using it as a reference when you need to get something done and have just forgotten how.

A Gem - Not Flowless
Got an used copy of this for my XML study.

This book was arranged with great concentration of various key concepts in the XML realm. Very concise and quite useful for experienced program developers.

However, the downside of this book is that some of its examples are not consistent with the Interface Definition, for instance, SAX 2.0, example in this book used .addAttribute Method, which could not be found in SAX 2.0 class definition at all, therefore confusion was there. The same problems were there in the DTD chapter, e.g. vague Entity explaination..

For you can get an free copy of this book on the web now, I gave it 3 stars.

just excellent
Not only explains very clearly all the complex stuff of xml schema when u're a beginner, but also well organized so that it's easy to come back to it when u have a precise questionning.
For me it's THE reference book about xsd, like stroustrup for c++ and kerningam for c.

Broad but Shallow
This is a reference book.It's not intended to read, but rather provide quick reference to just about any XML related topic.Unfortunately, the examples are very short and don't provide a great deal of insite.My next task is to look for a reference book that does provide useful examples -- I hope one exists.

a great book to have at your side while coding
Who can remember all the little details surrounding XML?This book is a great summery of the most important XML technologies.It isn't a tutorial, it isn't for beginners, it's for "What's the name of that XPath function that removes excess spaces?" (normalize-space).Highly recommended for finding answers fast. ... Read more

Product Description
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CREATING WEB PAGES WITH HTML, XHTML, AND XML teaches students how to create simple to complex Web sites from scratch using HTML, XHTML, and XML. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Required Files Not Provided
The text does a competent job of explaining the fundamentals of its subject matter, but the price is much too high compared to better-written, more informative texts on the same subjects.Also, the files needed to actually complete case problems and review projects are not included on a disc, but available through a companion site.Unfortunately, the files for tutorials 11+ are not available to download, making these review sections entirely useless and posing a serious problem for students in courses which utilize this text.

I would not recommend this book to anyone: there are far cheaper, more useful books on the subject available, not to mention the wealth of knowledge available for free on the Internet.

Alright
Have to download the files on a different site, but good book, awfully expensive though. ... Read more

Product Description
Written by members of the Oracle XML group, this is a must-have reference for all IT managers, DBAs, and developers who want to learn the best practices for using XML with Oracle's XML-enabled products. Includes real-world case studies based on the authors' experience managing Oracle's XML Discussion Forum--a community of 20,000+ XML component users. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Sloppy editing
Got the book a few days ago.I've been going through the examples.You can download all the source code from the Oracle Press web site, which is nice.But the examples in the book aren't given names or numbers, and the web site (although it does at least separate them by chapter) uses a cryptic and unexplained naming convention, so finding the code you want is confusing.

And it gets worse.The very first example in the book (and the downloaded code) won't compile; it calls a method that doesn't exist. I was able to work-around it.The second example wouldn't compile either; it has a typo.The fixes are easy enough so far, but it's frustrating.I guess they didn't have enough time to actually edit the book.Hopefully the online code will eventually be fixed.Disappointing so far. :(

Typos
I guess I am rushing to judgement - but in the first 10 pages I read, there were about 8 typos - so I am giving this a 2 stars for now. Will update my review/rating as I go along.

Does not start the job well
This book does not do a good job of getting the small experiments running. And w/o that, it is difficult to get any handle over the big picture. If you haven't done XML and Oracle integration before, this book definitely is not what you are looking for.

a must-have book for XML developers
This book covers everything on how to develop XML applications based on the Oracle XML infrastructure. It also provides the readers with a lot of samples on how to utilize the technology. No matter you are an advanced professional or a fresh graduate, if you are interested in XML-related Oracle application development, personally I think this is a must-have book.

An excellent work
I wish more books were written like this. When you read it you understand that a team of high professional people have worked on it. The book is organized to be useful for developers, DBAs, managers. You'll find here everything you need: XML & SQL,XSQL , XSLT, XML in PL/SQL, Java, C, C++. I highly recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Developers and system administrators alike are uncoveringthe true power ofXML, the Extensible Markup Language thatenables data to be sent over the Internet from one computerplatform to another or one application to another and retainits original format. Flexible enough to be customized forapplications as diverse as web sites, electronic datainterchange, voice mail systems, wireless devices, webservices, and more, XML is quickly becoming ubiquitous.

XML Hacks is a roll-up-your-sleeves guide that distillsyears of ingenious XML hacking into a complete set ofpractical tips, tricks, and tools for the web developers,system administrators, and programmers who want to go farbeyond basic tutorials to leverage the untapped power ofXML.

With plenty of useful real-world projects that illustratehow to define, read, create, and manipulate XML documents,XML Hacks shows readers how to put XML's power to work onthe Internet and within productivity applications. Each Hackin this book can be read easily in a few minutes, savingprogrammers and administrators countless hours of searchingfor the right answer. And this is an O'Reilly Hacks book, soit's not just practical, imminently useful, and time-saving.It's also fun.

From Anatomy of an XML Document to Exploring SOAP MessagesXML Hacks shows you how to save time and accomplish morewith fewer resources. If you want much more than the averageXML user--to explore and experiment, do things you didn'tknow you could do with XML, discover clever shortcuts, andshow off just a little--this invaluable book is a must-have. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great Overview of XML
As a Perl programmer, my first instinct when given some XML to process is to grab the appropriate Perl module (probably XML::XPath or XML::LibXML) and use that to do whatever I need to. Although that usually gets the job done, reading this book opened my eyes to a number of other XML processing tools that will sometimes be more useful than a Perl program. Actually Perl doesn't get mentioned at all in the index, whereas Java gets half a column of entries.

A lot of the book isn't aimed at the kind of person who is comfortable firing up an editor writing a program. Many of the hacks introduce ready-made applications that handle a number of different XML tasks. For example there are applications that, given an XML document, will take a first pass at creating an XML Schema or DTD for the document. This is something that would be an interesting project to write for yourself, but if you just need the schema it's nice to know that someone else has already written the application for you.

One of the most interesting chapters for me was the one about editing XML. My usual tool for that is xml-mode in Xemacs but the book introduced me to a number of other possibilities. The one that particularly caught my eye was nXML for Emacs. Unfortunately it's not currently compatible with Xemacs, so I need to try out some of the other editors that are discussed.

Like all of O'Reilly's Hacks books, this book is aimed at a very wide audience. Some of the tools are Open Source and some of them are commercial. Some of them run on only one platform and some of them will run anywhere. That has the potential to be a little frustrating when you find a tool that looks really useful, only to find out that it only runs on Windows. Fortunately the authors are aware of this problem and make a real effort to present tools that run on as wide a range of platforms as possible. If one hack presents a tool that only runs on Windows then you can be sure that the next hack has a similar tool that runs somewhere else.

The audience is diverse along other dimensions too. There are hacks aimed at people who will just want to save a Word document in DocBook format (hint: use OpenOffice) and at the other end of the spectrum there are hacks aimed at people who want to create SOAP services. There are hacks aimed at all levels of producing and using XML.

It's an inevitable consequence of this type of book that not everyone is going to find all of it useful. But the authors are obviously experts in their field and they explain themselves very clearly. I thought I knew a lot about processing XML but I discovered a lot of new and interesting things from this book. If you want a good overview of the various ways that XML can be useful to you, then this book would be a very good start.

Useful tips for every XML task you're likely to want to do
This is my favorite O'Reilly book. The scope covers everything you can imagine for working with XML.I really like the depth of information in every hack ('hack' in the sense of ways to get something done).Whenever a tool is mentioned, there is often additional info about related tools that do similar functionality and why you would choose one or the other. Each hack is like a well-crafted short story.

At first I glanced through the book.It's amazing how people have solved so many common tasks to make working with XML automated and flexible.It's fun to look at the titles of each hack and see the illustrations.I found myself saying "That's a technique that'll come in handy someday."

Then I found myself marking up the tools and applications mentioned that did nifty things that will be good quivers in my XML toolkit.

Finally this book provided some invaluable techniques when I needed to do a few one-time XML tasks.I needed to extract information from a humongous XML file.I was able to extract the text of all elements into a nice tidy HTML page.

Another time I created a tree diagram with custom bullet list symbols for the two types of items in the tree using CSS to format the XML (I'd heard it was possible, but didn't know how to do it).

And if you're looking for a quick explanation and examples for some XML technology, like XQuery, XSLT, SVG, XPointer, XLINK, RSS, some recommendations on commercial and free XML tools, XForms, XHTML, working with Microsoft Office documents as XML or for importing into Word or Excel and many more, then I recommend getting this useful, information-packed and handy reference book.

You'll grab it off the shelf whenever you want to do something efficiently in XML without reinventing the wheel.

helpful supplement
I'm familiar with XML and have found this book to be helpful. Not a book to learn XML, it is a place to pick up new information that can help to complete a toolbox already in the making. There were some hints to bridge gaps between what I want to do and what I know how to do. I plan to have it nearby to make my work easier and faster.

Do [Task] with [Other Object]
Nothing irritates me as much as the industries gratuitous use of the word "hack". I won't say more on this topic other than to advise you that any time you see the word "hack" in this book, substitute it for "tip", "task", or "how to". Once that is understood, this title takes on a whole new feel and its usefulness is made clearer.

Anyone not already familiar with XML, its creation and use, should probably not pick up this book.However, if you are using XML documents a lot, the chances are that this book will yield a resolution method for most of the XML file transformation, modification or parsing need you may have.This method, however, typically requires the use of a third party utility, application, or script (a great many of the tips are titled "Do [something] using [something else]").A quick flip through the table of contents reveals at least 35 different utilities required to the complete the associated tasks - which is OK if you don't mind incorporating "black box" solutions into your environment.There are also many "see this book" notations within this title as well, so if you find a solution to a need, but require more than what the tip tells you, you may need to make additional purchases.

Overall, a good read for anyone that already knows and makes heavy use of XML; you're sure to walk away with something new.

100 Cool Hints and Tips
If you've ever tried to go to a web page automatically and then parse the information by examining the string you got back, you can appreciate XML. While not perfect XML is probably the most practical option for packaging data that can be read by both humans and computers.

As with the other O'Reilly Hacks books, this one contains 100 hints, tips and suggestions on on how to get more out of XML.

I find that whenever I read one of their Hacks books I pick up something useful that just happens to fit the problem I'm working on at the moment. This one was no exception. Great idea! Great Books. ... Read more

Product Description

Fuzzy Database Modeling with XML aims to provide a single record of current research and practical applications in the fuzzy databases. This volume is the outgrowth of research the author has conducted in recent years. Fuzzy Database Modeling with XML introduces state-of-the-art information to the database research, while at the same time serving the information technology professional faced with a non-traditional application that defeats conventional approaches.

The research on fuzzy conceptual models and fuzzy object-oriented databases is receiving increasing attention, in addition to fuzzy relational database models. With rapid advances in network and internet techniques as well, the databases have been applied under the environment of distributed information systems. It is essential in this case to integrate multiple fuzzy database systems. Since databases are commonly employed to store and manipulate XML data, additional requirements are necessary to model fuzzy information with XML. Secondly, this book maps fuzzy XML model to the fuzzy databases. Very few efforts at investigating these issues have thus far occurred.

Fuzzy Database Modeling with XML is designed for a professional audience of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable for graduate-level students in computer science.

Product Description
Building on the popular first edition, this hands-on learning title demonstrates step by step how to create effective XML documents and display them on the Web. It also reviews the latest W3C standards, shows how to process XML in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 4.0, and expands coverage of namespaces, cascading style sheets (CSS), and other technologies. A companion CD-ROM includes XML examples plus extensive links to further resources. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

XML Step by Step, Second Edition
Superb organization and presentation of the material. All code functions, all examples are relevant. Excellent development of the topics. Were all texts to be this will organized.

Useful!
I am just learning XML for the first time and this book walks me through it the way I need to be walked through it.

Stop Searching.Begin here
I am one of those freaks who would look at a bezillion books before settling with one. (Talking about computer books ofcourse!). This is especially significant when it comes to XML because there is so much tech jargon out there & it is really hard find a book that does not get lost in the details & instead introduce us to the core right away.This book does exactly that.You will start writing decent xml right away.

The following will be helpful.

1.HTML knowledge (a little)
2. The concept of scripts
3.The concept of CSS
4. The concept of XML

When I say 'the concept of', I am only talking about a surface level, "Purpose of existence" kind.Even if you don't know anything about XML, you will be fine with this book.

The book gradually introduces the concepts & does a very neat job of explaining new ideas.

Peace.

An easy introduction to XML for the uninitiated
Some experience with HTML might be mandatory.But, the examples are excellent and easy to follow.And the text is neither dry nor simple minded.

A book for XML beginners
This is a book for beginners.I bought the first edition and it gave me all the important information about XML before I started working with it.When I first read it, I thought it was a wonderful book and it was very easy to understand.You will now what's XML in one week and you'll be able to start using it in only two days just by looking at the examples.

Unfortunately, right now I know there's so much more out there about XML than the information contained on the book and believe me, once that you read it, you are never going to used it again because it's not a good book for reference.

I would recommend you to look for a different book with more examples, source code, advanced features or even one that can be used as a reference in your future work. ... Read more

Product Description
As an object-oriented language with powerful text processingcapabilities, Python is an ideal language for manipulating XML. Python & XML provides you with a solid foundation forusing these two languages together. Loaded with practical examples,the book highlights common application tasks, so that you canlearn by doing.The book starts with the basics then quickly progresses tocomplex topics, like transforming XML with XSLT, querying XMLwith XPath, and working with XML dialects and validation. It alsocovers the more advanced issues, such as SOAP and distributed webservices, and explores the use of Python to create scalable XMLstreams between distributed applications.If you are a Python programmer who wants to incorporateXML into your skill set, this is the book for you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Great Overview of XML
I found the entire book easy to read and understand.I've been programming for a while now, but am new to both Python and XML and this book was at the perfect level for me.The book is very readable and the examples used were both concise and pertinent.The Python code used in the book was easy to follow even though I've only been using Python for a few weeks.

This book is mostly a tutorial on what XML is, how to manipulate XML documents using Python, and how to use XML to move data over the internet via HTTP.It was a very good practical overview of XML in the context of Python.While it wasn't all-encompassing, the book gave you just the right amount of information to get started, without burying you with details that might be better left to more of a reference style book.

I almost gave it just 4 stars only because the chapter on SOAP was quite dated.Since the book was last published when SOAP was in it's infancy, I didn't find that the information provided was quite as useful as it could be.The overview of SOAP was OK, but the sample code seemed to not have the same flow as the rest of the book.That said, if you're looking for information on SOAP specifically, this book may not be your best choice.Interestingly though, the last chapter that ties everything together with a more involved example web application, shows how to do a SOAP-like web service without actually using SOAP - which actually seemed to be a lot simpler in my opinion.

I would have also appreciated a little more coverage of XML Schemas, but after reading the book, I now at least know what to look for.All-in-all though, an excellent book to get you started if you're looking to work with XML documents using Python.

Great coverage with some typos
This book really dvelves into the using XML with Python. The
chapter are well laid out and easy to read. There are some typos
but nothing that you can't fix. There are some problems using the current XSLT processer that ships with PyXml0.7 but you can
still apply the concepts (I used MSXML's XSLT). The best chapter (last one (:-|) ties all the concepts explained into a Web Service like app. that really shows the real strength of XML

Good Coverage of Python XML possibilities
I really liked this book because I was able to quickly start using XML with Python.I tried to use the package docs, but they were often hard to read, and didn't fill me in on the background stuff I needed to know.The examples in this book were easy to understand, and easy to see how to make practical applications from them.I didn't encounter any typos like the other reader did.

Terse, and too many typos!
I'm not very far along in the book, but I don't like what I'm seeing.
The preface purports that the book's audience need not "know anything
about XML." There is very little in the way of explaining XML, however.
The chapter on "Fundamentals" is O'Reilly at its most terse. If you already
understand XML very well, you might think this chapter an excellent
itemizing of the specification. Sadly, most people, I imagine, would be able
to retain little from this.

Regarding the code examples, the explanations hardly illuminate the API.
The code stands as is; and the commentary does only a somewhat decent job
of explaining the larger context. You could always check the documentation
given in the back of the book, but that's hardly as helpful as a good overview
and commentary.

Moreover, and in some ways worse, I have found many typos -- and I am only
as far as the first two examples. These mistakes include missing import
statements, errant capitalization, bad indentation, double underscores ('__')
written as one long underscore. This is unacceptable. I can only hope it is just
this one chapter.

I bought this book because of the topics, and because I figured Python would
be the easiest way to learn XML API's. I am only hoping that the book will
get better, and that I will be able to derive benefit from it. As it stands,
I'm skeptical that I will get my money's worth. ... Read more

Product Description
Teach yourself how to write and deploy XML Web services for Microsoft .NET-one step at a time. XML Web services can vastly simplify application integration and interoperability, but developing them requires an understanding of many different programming techniques and technologies. This step-by-step tutorial delivers expert, task-based instruction designed to help you apply what you already know about C#, Microsoft Visual Basic, and other object-oriented programming (OOP) languages to XML Web services development-at the pace that best suits you. Topics include XML Web services architecture; writing, testing, and debugging Web services; and consuming Web services asynchronously through clients or with HTTP; and advanced topics such as managing Web service state, security, SOAP, and .NET remoting. The book features skill-building lessons and practice exercises, with plenty of examples in both the C# and Visual Basic .NET languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

out of date
Many of the practice examples do not work with Visual Studio 2008.

Much has changed since the publishing of this book. And if you are keeping up with the new technology of Microsoft this book is outdated. Published in 2002, the new paradigm is WCF.

I would like to see and own a book that explains the new WCF, with database examples to AdventureWorks, Microsofts practice database you can download and work examples.

That is my humble two cents review.

Thank you,
-robert

Quite good, and what the title says
I've recently readed this book while travelling to and from work, and my goal was to learn more about Web Services, and precisely those that gave XML responses, so this book was a good candidate.

The book contains what it says: all about web services in .NET. This is good, because you can always have it as a reference book whenever developing web services. It covers SOAP, HTTP POST and GET protocols, ASMX web services and WSDL-created proxy classes, UDDI and DISCO files, state management, caching, session and state management, and even asynchronous examples.

The only "bad" thing about the book that I've found is the "STEP BY STEP" sub-header... At least in this book it means "complete examples in every chapter".
The book is 373 pages long (apart from the appendixes), at least one third of that being code examples. And of that 100+ pages of code, the majority is trivial basic WS code that seeing one is ok, twice maybe, but the third time you just skip to the bold part that marks the "important" code.

The authors could have avoided full samples from later chapters, instead only showing the relevant code snippets.

But anyway, as I started saying it is a recommended book to learn (or get deep into) .NET web services development.

Good Overview But Becoming Dated
This book was a fantastic overview of how XML Web Services are encapsulated by the .NET platform and the services provided by the numerous APIs. It offers step-by-step examples that lead you through the various facets ofproducing and consuming Web Services. It does not delve too deeply into many of the services provided by .NET for bettor or worse.

Four years ago I would have rated this book a 4 star or higher, however, the examples are based upon legacy .NET 1.1 and Visual Studio 2003. Like myself, I would presume that the majority of developers are at least working with .NET 2.0 and VS 2005 now. In addition the current release of both is at 3.5 and 2008 respectively.

The core material of the book is still very much relevant. The examples for how to configure IIS, setup and copy web projects, and manipulate code in the IDE have changed significantly between product releases though. I didn't mind that much because it forced me to have to figure out how to apply the same task in the newer environment. For me that was OK, but beginners may be frustrated by that.

A few notes on the content and examples:

1. In the code exercises, I found that it would have been much more helpful to put the steps for importing classes (C# using / VB import statements) at the beginning of the code exercises instead of at the end so the person typing in the code could better make use of Visual Studio's Intellisense feature.

2. There was a lot of rote copy / retyping the same material from chapter to chapter. The author tried to minimize with copy instructions in each chapter. I felt as though the examples could have been modularized and reused better.

3. The Microsoft UDDI site that chapter 9 discusses no longer functions as described in the text. I skipped it completely.

4. Chapter 15 about consuming Web Services asynchronously was the one that probably had the most version differences between .NET 1.1 and 2.0. The way that callbacks are handled changed dramatically. This was once again a good learning experience for me to figure out how to make it work in 2.0

5. Code examples were generally good, however, the authors coding style for variable names was not all that intuitive. Maybe a short mention of naming convention would have been nice (e.g.what the 'p_' and 'x_' prefixes meant)

Overall, it is a good book and I would recommend it highly if you are still developing on .NET 1.1 / VS 2003, but less so if not. Hopefully, the authors will publish a newer edition sometime soon.

Good for beginners
The book can be read in a day and half and at the end you'll really know something useful.

The topics covered are well thought out, though I thought the credit card example was pretty tedious; after a while I just started skipping over it to read what was on topic.

My background is C++ and I came into the C# and XML Web Services with no experience in either; by the end of the book I was comfortable authenticating users, enabling sessions, keeping things in cache and hitting the database.

The book is a fine read and does a good getting you up to speed, one of the best I've read in a while; 4 stars (instead of 5) (-1) for not refactoring the credit card example.

Great for beginners
As the suffix title suggests, this book _does_not_rush_ things; very obviously catered for novice developers, it slowly oozes out information a step at a time. The authors exhibit their virtuous patience by going into great lengths to introduce the technology concepts that support XML web services, complete with comprehensive diagrams. These base explanations facilitate a firmer foundational understanding that no developer of XML web services should do without.

Accompanying this conceptual theory are practical-driven chapters, each demonstrating a facet of web service development in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET. The instructions are so minutely explicit and clear, virtually taking the reader by the hand (so much so might annoy more seasoned developers), that building the examples listed are exceedingly easy tasks. And I do not mean that in a blind copy-and-paste manner; the baby steps are enriched with proper explanations to ensure readers have sufficient knowledge of why such a piece of code exists somewhere. Even the asynchronous and multi-threading chapter, a topic that most developers tend not to have a good grip on, is written with amazing clarity. The book's 16 chapters are incredibly easy to read and digest, possessing little (if not none) of that confusing wordy fluff that delivers nothing; this one goes straight to the point, short and sweet.

Sometimes however, short can also mean _truncated_. There are places where it simply stops and closes shop on the chapter when more demonstrations are expected. Take for example the fifth chapter, where it is supposed to show using web services with HTTP requests along (without SOAP). It explains alot about HTTP-GET and HTTP-POST, but only walks through a HTTP-GET practical. I felt omitting HTTP-POST would not fair well in the light of educating novices.

While on the flow of novice practices, it also strangely presents a mix of good and legacy (not necessarily bad) examples. The use of the StringBuilder class to append strings together is a good one, but continuing to code with "" and string.ToLower() show an affinity to past platforms. string.Empty and CaseInsensitiveComparer are respectively preferred choices in the .NET Framework practice.

Almost needless to state, even with the "Advanced" part of the book, one should not be expecting any serious deep topics or design patterns revolving web services here. But I couldn't help but feel it waste for such fantastic writing style not delivering something more that is usually arcane in other books. Who should be blamed for desiring more out of a delicious meal?

Great book to get developers started and up to speed with XML web services. But those looking to become _masters_ should read something else.

Good: Crystal clear explanations; easy following; great beginner material
Bad: Little to offer beyond the beginner; odd omissions; few legacy practices ... Read more

Product Description
In recent years Extensible Markup Language (XML) has had a major impact on software development and data interchange and has begun to have a similar effect in technical communication. XML provides a platform-independent, vendor-neutral source language for publishing documentation of all kinds and in any output format. XML solutions have already been adopted by many technical publication departments, while others are poised to make the move to XML. Authoring tools, publishing tools and content management systems are providing support for XML languages, in particular Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), one of the XML languages designed specifically for technical documentation.Increasingly, technical communicators therefore need to understand what XML has to offer and how it can be used in the various areas of technical communication. This book fills an important gap in the market by providing a broad introduction to XML and its role in technical communication. It describes the basics of XML syntax and terminology, the use of XML in technical communication and the advantages it can bring to the production of technical documentation of all types. It introduces the key XML languages that are used for technical documentation, both as documentation source formats and for transforming source documents to various output formats. The book will be invaluable to anyone who needs a fast introduction to XML and its role in technical communication, such as those whose organization is deploying an XML-based documentation solution, or freelancers who need to keep pace with technical trends. It caters for technical communicators of all levels of markup language experience, providing a comprehensive yet easy to read overview of the use of XML in technical communication, as well as references to more in-depth material.This revised and updated second edition now includes a section about S1000D, the international specification for the production of technical publications that is widely used in the aerospace and defence industries. Other additions include more information about how XML facilitates common technical communication tasks and more material about DocBook.Charles Cowan FISTC is a Principal Technical Writer with the Oracle Corporation. He has worked as a technical communicator for over a quarter of a century, developing documentation for various clients and software companies in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, as well as in the UK and Ireland. He is an IBM Certified Developer in XML and Related Technologies and holds postgraduate qualifications in computing and software development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

What I expected
Everything went out fine.

I was familiar with the book (ISTC is a quality stamp)
and the expectations were fulfilled.




Rui Serra
APCOMTEC

Excellent Resource for XML!
This book is an excellent overview of how XML is used in technical communication - it really put things into perspective for me.

The book is very well written and organized, guiding the reader through the history of XML, through the key concepts of XML, and the XML markup languages that are relevant to the technical communication profession today. There's a great chapter on the options for authoring XML, and the chapter covering DITA is very useful for gaining an understanding of how powerful DITA is, and and how it makes reuse of content easier.Now I understand what all the fuss about DITA is about!

I really enjoyed the chapter about XML and localization too - we hear a lot about how XML can save money in localization projects - this chapter explains how.The glossary is particularly goodtoo - I haven't seen anything similar elsewhere that provides such a comprehensive set of definitions.

Whether you're a novice, or have already worked with XML, you will find this book very valuable.

Excellent guide for technical writers interested in fully leveraging XML
Disclaimer: Charles Cowan (the author) and I are technical writers at Oracle, although we work in different divisions on different continents, and, in fact, have never met. I came across this book recently through my studies at graduate school and not through any association at Oracle. My review is based solely on that experience.

"XML in Technical Communication" is an excellent source for anyone who wants to learn about XML and how it can be leveraged in the world of technical writing. An easy read that's well-written and organized, this book is especially useful and suited for writers who are new to XML. If you've never heard of DocBook or DITA, or if you have but want to learn more, this book is for you (for writers with some knowledge and experience with XML, this book may fill in many knowledge gaps, as it did for me). The book provides a detailed (but not too detailed) history of XML as well as a solid review of its technical underpinnings and current implementations. I've been working with XML in a technical writing capacity for over 10 years, and spent four of those years working with Arbortext Epic Editor and the DocBook DTD (both discussed in this book). Still, I had much to learn. Highly recommended.

The best in its kind
The book was worth the long wait and search. I believe it would cater to beginers. It eases the big jigsaw by putting in perspective the various aspects of creation, storing and processing of XML and DITA. The parts on SVG was a bonus.
However, I do wish that the author had delved into some more technical details, with an extended scope. Tutorials would have been very helpful. ... Read more

Product Description
ABOUT THE BOOKHTML, XHTML, CSS and XML by example explains how to manually create web pages using HTML, XHTML, CSS, and XML technologies. This book is based on W3 Consortium specifications and details how the most commonly used browsers implement these recommendations.Designed as a useful reference and guide, this book provides complete code sources, high-resolution screen captures and more than 300 descriptive examples to aid the developer. Each feature of HTML, XHTML, CSS, and XML is presented, analyzed and exemplified by emphasizing the purpose for which that feature was designed and implemented. As well,the full range of possible attribute and property values is detailed with complete examples.This book also presents detailed solutions explaining how the developer can integrate HTML, XHTML, CSS, and XML to create professional web pages using these complementary Internet technologies.Category: Web Development/HTMLUser Level: Intermediate through advanced ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Could be more expecific, good for intermediate level
I was trying to learn xml and xslt. Its major fault is that it doesn't describe what each tag means. is more of an intermediate level read, so good not great. ... Read more

Product Description
This book will help you learn and use XML Schema collections in SQL Server. Prior knowledge of XSD is not required to start with this book, although any experience with XSD will make your learning process easier. This book starts with the basics of XML schemas and then walks you through everything you need to know, with examples and labs, in order to build powerful XML schemas in SQL Server. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

excellent must have resource
The book is written in a very accessible and informative style. It is ideal for anyone trying to implement xsd schema validation.

A great book where the title reflect its content
This is a great book about the Art of XSD. It has good depth and coverage of the subject and inspires you to improve your use of XML both in SQL server and other solutions. The book is not so thick, compared to other American literature on the subject which in my opinion is a plus, quality over quantity.
The only bad I can say about the book is that the text style of the samples is to big and the book text, gets in the background. Probably its better in digital format...
Currently the book is focused on the use of schema. It think it would have been great with a chapter in the end about using xml in sql server, but that's maybe gets the book off topic.
Buy it and improve your use of xml schema!

XSD really made easy to understand
Trying to come to grips with XML has always been a challenge to most of us in the IT world. Finally a book that can explain the principles of XSD schemas in an easy to understand way. Jacob handles the book in a well thought out manner starting off in chapter 3 with a real world example. Albeit I am only partially through the book, I am able to follow along with the practical examples. His choice of words are simple, easy to understand PLUS after having shown the code for the XSD he works you through how and why he created the schema in the way that he did.
Should want a great read and wish to learn a bit more about XML and XSD schemas, do youself a favour and purchase a copy of this book. Honestly it is money well spent !!
... Read more

Product Description
XML Unleashed is a complete and comprehensive reference for sophisticated Web developers that covers every possible use of XML, from creating Web documents to building sophisticated Web applications. It covers all aspects of XML technology, from DTDs, XSL, and X Pointers to manipulating XML with Java and JavaScript. See hundreds of professional programming techniques as well as code for more than 15 real-world XML applications involving e-commerce, database access, Web management, real estate, and healthcare. This book also includes reference material on SMIL, the XML-based language for Web multimedia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Lots of stuff - that's it
This is the first XML book I bought, and the last one too. It gives you a broad view of the technology, not a very organized one, but along with the enormous quantities of text available on the subject in the Web, this book can get you started.

Not organized, badly explained, incomplete CD
This book contains a little useful information, but it tried to be everything for everyone, and very few topics are well explained. It contains chapter for java, C++, MS parsers, but none of them are clear. It is not well organized enough to be read from beginngin to the end as a book, and as reference, it is not easy to find something useful and concisely presented. What makes me more dispointed and/or angry is that the CD with this book (or at least, the CD or the book I bought) is not complete. Source code in some chapters are missing!!

Please refer to <> by Steven Holzner for better XML explanation, <> by Benoit Marchall (for java developers). <> of Benoit Marchall is also good for beginners.

I liked this book
This is the only book on XML that I have read besides Black Book (which is a junk) and some material on internet. I liked this book for it's crisp and clear explanation of fundamental concepts. The book, as it says, is targetted towards the intermediate to advanced reader and it assumes some prior knowledge of XML. Based on such a reader, the book is an exact target and indeed does some good things to them. Atleast it did for me.

The only thing that I did not like in the book was that the book seems to be little bit out of pace in keeping touch with the advances in XML technology. It does cover the various (advanced) kind of technolgy where it (XML) can be used but for topics like Schema, CSS1/CSS2 or XSL it is not quite in touch. I think it was written in Sep'99 and quite often mentions "as of this writing...". Things have changed pretty much after that, related to XML and would have been better if included. But such things aren't very important from understanding XML, fundamentally. So I would indeed recommend the book but would not give 5 stars due to this hitch. Moreover I haven't read other books on XML and I guess, this book would suffice for some more time (atleast for me).

ps: I found the style of writing in this book very impressive which makes the subject quite interesting. The examples are selected equally well as well.

The most thorough and valuable resource on the subject
This book is not ideal to _start_ learning XML from scratch anget "quick and dirty" into writing your own; it is quitelike an encyclopedia, and keeps many key skills in their own chapters,even if they would be needed together.

If you have already gonethrough an indroduction...then there is no better public resource(online, offline, and even many instructors) for learning so muchabout XML technologies and in so much detail.Mr.Morrison thinksahead of the times by covering ideas that are sure to evolve into themainstream (such as out-of-line links and contextual search engines)while rarely failing to mention the status of the technology with theW3C, supporting software, and links where to learn or download more.He covers existing and create-your-own markup languages to a muchgreater degree than the "XML Bible" which was the other bookI considered buying.

The software on the CD-ROM is useful, but manyare demo downloads, and the CD-ROM could have had more examples and"Get started practices for each chapter.

Thick book of information, disjointed and rambling.
Because I own another well-written book in Sams' "Unleashed" series, I bought this one.What I was looking for was a good XML reference with concise sections on rules of grammer.Instead this is a hot and coldrunning dialog that has an irritating tendency to skip ahead of itself bytelling the reader the only way to learn is to plunge in.After presentingan example details are omitted as the reader is told that such and such afeature won't explained until chapter 38 so please ignore.

As an exampleof how difficult this book is to use as an XML reference, I dug and finallyfound in one of chapter 2's paragraphs a discussion of the '?' and '+'cardinality operators.However, for some reason the third operator '*' hadto wait for chapter 3.Their descriptions were incomplete if not downright wrong and the term "cardinality operator" appears nowherein the entire book.For example the description for '*' says it is used"to indicate that the entire choice group is optional."Thisdescription most closely matches the '?' operator.With '*' the group isallowed to appear zero or more times.The In contrast in Wrox's"Professional XML" all three operators are included prominentlyin a box with a description of each.

The material in this book would havebeen much more useful if the author and editor would have taken adequatetime to better organize it. ... Read more

Product Description
Using XSLT and XPath, developers can take full advantage of virtually any XML data in both Web applications and printed documents. Guide to XML Transformations: XSLT & XPath delivers a thorough understanding of the concepts and inner workings of Xpath and the XSLT processing model. Leading XSL experts Zarella Rendon and John Robert Gardner teach XSLT and XPath through extensive example code, explained line by line. Guide to XML Transformations assumes basic HTML and/or skills, but no familiarity with programming concepts. Readers can utilize its hands-on exercises to quickly begin performing substantive transformations of XML to HTML and, soon after, to virtually any other format. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Best Book Ever if you want to truly learn XSLT and XPATH
I love this book, they are no longer printing this book, but if you can grab it, grab it!It's truly amazing.Love this book and it comes with a CD.

Excellent XSLT reference!
I've had this book on my shelf since publication. I had to dig it out last week to do some fairly complex XSLT programming. The book was a huge help and helped me get everything done quite quickly.

I use this book as a reference book, not a how-to. This book is great for things like "what is the function that does 'x' and what are its arguments?" It probably helps that I know XML pretty deeply, so I don't typically look at the examples. Of course, that might be because the docs on the functions in the book are so good that I find I don't need to look at the examples.

XSLT hasn't changed much since this book was published. If you deal with XSLT, and, by extension, XPATH, get this book for reference.

Poor Editing, Poor Examples
This feels like a book that had it's table of contents laid out, and then the content filled in as quickly as possible. Editing must have lasted about 3 days. With a more thorough editing process, and a bit more thought to the examples (the boulevard examples taumatized me so much, I nearly stopped driving), it may have been a very good book.

In some sections, the same paragraph is repeated verbatim 2 or even 3 times. Often in the chapter overview, and then on the next page in the first chapter section.

Possibly the book appeals to other learning styles better, but I've found it a tough slog. In fairness though, XSLT is a strange and difficult beast- I may be transferring some of my frustration on to the messenger!

However, in general, I find the examples are too repetive, causing them to blur together. And you find myself flipping back as many as 6 pages at times to find the xml code the description is talking about.

And there is a lack of technical illustrations to help with more difficult topics.

I would have appreciate larger examples from different domains to specific goals. The problem with a lot of the examples is the purposelessness of the examples.

XML in a Nutshell, and Michael Kay's XLST reference have provided me much more joy.

My last word of advice- follow the examples live. XSLT and XPath need practice, and lots of it.

Examples are laden with errors
I suppose this book might be helpful as a reference, but to someone who is actually trying to figure out what to do with xslt and xpath, this book is a very poor primer.I found that, in addition to offering little explanation as to how xpath and xslt are needed in a larger context (is this supposed to supplant sql??, for example), the examples are so error-prone that I learned more by correcting the errors than I did reading the book.Here is a list of errors you will encounter (from the CD) for the first 3 chapters:

1.1 (string not quoted)
1.2 (only 1 top-level element allowed).
2.1 (invalid character)
2.4 (cannot locate resource)
2.5 (template.xml undeclared namespace)
2.7 (cannot locate resource)
3.2 (output.xml invalid at the top level)
3.3 ditto
3.4 worked -- hey, a working example!
3.5 (output.xml invalid at the top level)
3.6 misplaced period
3.7 invalid at top level
3.8 only 1 top level element allowed
3.9 invalid at the top level...

The rest of the chapter examples are similar to this one.
Without good examples, a programming book is almost worthless.

Not too many good examples, but a decent reference
I would agree this is more of a reference for the seasoned XPath/XSLT programmer. I'm a intermediate java programmer with some decent background in xml. I haven't really been able to get that much from this book in the way of examples. It's very light on examples. ... Read more

Product Description
An accessible and step-by-step approach to using VB.NET and XML enterprise application development
XML is a tool for interacting with, describing, and transporting data between machines across networks and across the Internet-perfectly suited for Microsoft's .NET plan to fully integrate the Internet into distributed computing. By using real-world and fully-functional examples, this book quickly brings Visual Basic programmers and developers up to speed on XML for enterprise application development. The authors include an overview of XML and how it works with VB.NET, then explain how to use it to manipulate data in distributed environments.Microsoft Technologies
.NET Platform: The next big overhaul to Microsoft's technologies that will bring enterprise distributed computing to the next level by fully integrating the Internet into the development platform. This will allow interaction between any machine, on any platform, and on any device.
Visual Basic.NET: The update to this popular visual programming language will offer greater Web functionality, more sophisticated object-oriented language features, links to Microsoft's new common runtime, and a new interface.
ASP.NET: A programming framework (formerly known as Active Server Pages) for building powerful Web-based enterprise applications; can be programmed using VB.NET or C#.
C#: Microsoft's new truly object-oriented programming language that builds on the strengths of C++ and the ease of Visual Basic; promises to give Sun's Java a run for its money. ... Read more

Product Description
Programming Web Services with XML-RPC introduces the simple but powerful capabilities of XML-RPC, a system for remote procedure calls built on XML and the HTTP protocol.XML-RPC lets developers connect programs running on different computers with a minimum of fuss, by wrapping procedure calls in XML and establishing simple pathways for calling functions.With XML-RPC, Java programs can talk to Perl scripts, which can talk to Python programs, ASP applications, and so on.Developers can provide access to functionality without having to worry about the system on the other end, so it's easy to create web services.This book supplies the details of both the XML-RPC specification and various XML-RPC implementations, so you can get started developing distributed applications in Java, Perl, Python, ASP, or PHP. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Dated, But still Good
The book is dated, and some of the examples, like the ones usingPython are out of sync with current libraries. But, overall, the book is still valuable.It begins with a nice forward from an XML-RPC insider - Dave Winer;he was intimately involved in the evolution of the XML-RPC spec and you get a rare glimpse into the discussions that resulted in the technology spec -something that you rarely find in tech books. The next best thing about the book are the authors - they are totally in charge of the subject being developers themselves and experienced authors. With reasonable examples,tips and insights on XML-RPC - the technology itself, plus various language implementations of XML-RPC libraries, this book written on an under hyped and flawed,but successful loose integration and web services technology is a good read. Apart from sections explaining the protocol itself, the major portion of the book is devoted to Java,Perl, and Python implementations of the standard, integrating web applicationswith XML-rpc using PHP,and bridging ASP and COM.

Webservices started from XML-RPC
Not many people are aware of how the whole idea behind SOAP and, later, Webservices, started from XML-RPC. It covers some interesting background information on how XML-RPC was born, and good coverage of its strengths and shortcomings, plus examples in five different languages (Perl, Python, ASP, PHP, Java)

good intro for XML/RPC
Good coverage but a bit repetitive since it explains
the same thing for each of several languages. Only
read the chapters you need... Sadly XML/RPC seems
to be losing ground to .NET/SOAP which is a shame
coz RPC is much simpler and less bandwidth intensive.

All About XML-RPC in Five Languages
This book explains fully how to use XML-RPC in five languages: Java, PHP, Perl, Python, and ASP. Becuase XML-RPC is so simple to use (I got it working for both Java and PHP), it does not take much explanation to set up this technology and actually use it. This book is a good up-to-date reference for this technology, which will has been established and is being implemented in more and more languages as time progresses, making this technology an alternative to CORBA.
This is a small book, because the subject is very easy and fast to learn. By using the Universal Language XML, This technology enables programs in one language to call procedures in programs in another language across the internet, regardless of firewalls, because it runs on HTTP.
Some of the possibilities of using XML-RPC are in SOAP applications, distributed applications, even internet games.

lack depth make this one a ...
overall an okay book. charpter 3 is poorly written (no complete example showing how to use servlet as XML RPCserver! perhaps the author have never done it himself) the reader should wait for a better book on this topic. ... Read more

Product Description
Teaches that stored procedure development does not occur in a vacuum--it involves a wide variety of skills, subjects, and technologies--and helps the reader become a better software engineer, not just a stored procedure expert. The most complete coverage of SQL Server stored procedure programming available in one source. Softcover. CD-ROM included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (83)

Ken Henderson's - Guru's Guide to SQL Stored Procedures...
An awesome book.Well written and easy to understand.If yuu only buy one book for SQL Server stored procedures, this should be the one!

Not as good as his first effort
I bought Ken Henderson's Guru's Guide to T-SQL a few years back and was extremely impressed with it.It was a "How-to-do-it" book with a 1001good practical ideas that the hard-working database programmer could use immediately.

I bought this book because I am now working more with the topics that are supposed to be covered by this book, Stored Procedures, XLM, and HTML.I was impressed with how his first book had quickly and easily improved my skills and was interested in seeing what he could do for me in the new arena.Unfortunately it didn't work out.

In spite of the titles, the two books are barely related to each other.This book is a "why-you-do-it-this-way" book with a lot of philosophy and best-practice stuff and relatively few of the tips and tricks that I valued so highly in the first book.Unfortunately this information isn't that valuable now because the state of the art has kept changing and much of what he discusses either isn't relevant anymore or is now blindingly obvious.

But the problem with the book goes deeper than that.The extraordinary value of the first book was that it hit to Ken Henderson's strengths; very clear writing about very small topics with obvious and immediate payback for the reader.This book unfortunately tends to emphasize his weaknesses; poor organization, wandering off topic, and frequently saying too much that adds very little.

That's not to say that there aren't good reasons to buy this book, he's still a good clear author and there aren't enough of them in the technical writing field today.I particularly valued the essays at the end of the book and there are lots of valuable little nuggets that can be found throughout the entire book, just don't buy this book with the expectation that it will be the motherlode that his first book was.

A lot of the information relates to older release of SQL server
This book would be fantastic if I would still run an older release of the SQL server ... and the stored procedures part is still very relevant. The XML and HTML parts (where I've expected most) unfortunately do not cover the new abilities of the SQL Server 2005, so I guess we just have to wait for a new release of this book.

Best Book for Hoardcore SQL Server
This book is for experienced SQL developers. No fancy stuff. I found it very useful, since you will find lot of material you won't find anywhere else. It can be a good source for those who tries to handle SQL Server administration by not using Enterprise manager (such doing a backup, reindexing databases etc.). But in any case it's a very good addition to your library. Great job by Ken Anderson.

This is the book for SQL Developers/DBAs
I have about $2000 worth of the book on asp.net, cfml, Microsoft SQL server, Oracle DB book, and other tech related books.Most of the books I had are poorly written and the authors are trying to make "quick buck".This book is very well written and in-depth of Microsoft SQL Server.Highly recommanded! ... Read more

Product Description
In order to leverage XML's power as a self-describing and extensible language, we need a way to define and describe the allowable content of any type of XML document. In the past, this has been achieved with DTDs, but these have in many ways fallen short of the requirements for working with data. XML Schemas were created to provide a more powerful and flexible mechanism for describing permissible document structures using XML syntax. They provide a set of built-in datatypes, which can mimic the object-oriented mechanisms of many languages, offer support for namespaces, and facilities for automated documentation.

Professional XML Schemas exhaustively details the W3C XML Schema language, and teaches the new syntax in an intuitive and logical way. From declaring elements and attributes, creating complex content models, and working with multiple namespaces, you'll move on to see how XML Schemas are used in real-world situations. A number of practical case studies will illustrate the design and creation of schemas in the diverse worlds of relational databases, document management, and e-commerce applications.

This book covers:
A complete guide to XML Schema Syntax
Using XML Schema built-in types, and deriving new types
Working with XML Schemas and namespaces
Creating identity and uniqueness constraints
Good XML Schema design, illustrated in a number of different areas
Working with XML Schemas and XSLT
Writing XML Schemas for working with SOAP
Integrating Schematron and XML Schemas
Amazon.com Review
Suitable for virtually any XML designer or developer, Professional XML Schemas provides a challenging, in-depth guide to state-of-the-art XML Schema tools and techniques. This title will likely be a virtual must-have for anyone working with XML for databases or document management.

The range of topics presented here helps make this title a success. While there is some leading-edge (and somewhat obscure) material on emerging topics in XML Schemas, much of the book avoids XML "language lawyering" and concentrates on delivering a solid tour of the basics. The authors walk before they run, taking the reader along with basic XML Schema constructs to define simple data types in XML. They show off elements, attributes, and simple data types. (There's coverage of the full complement of over two dozen built-in XML Schema data types for numerical, string, date, and IDREFs.) The earlier sections include the author's own sample classes for a handful of common data types for such common entities as people's names, countries, IP addresses and URIs, plus geographical locations. Fully internationalized, these samples can serve as a basis for entities in your custom projects.

The second half of the book digs into design strategies at a higher level, dealing more with XML Schemas. The authors cover several reusable design strategies for creating workable XML Schemas (like the Russian Doll, the Slice, and finally the Venetian Blind model, which blends the first two). There's discussion of the best ways to express required and optional elements, along with choice values and ordering of required elements. Integration with XML namespaces and a discussion of the issues surrounding reuse in XML Schemas (like combining and extending existing datatypes) show how powerful this standard really is.

Valuable chapters on using XML Schemas with databases (including expressing relational integrity and normalization), plus the differences between XML Schemas used for document management will help you make the right design choices in each setting. The book closes with a discussion and tour of late-breaking tools like Schematron (and its competitors) as well as the possibilities for functional programming with XML Schema in schema-based programming (SBP).

Whether you are an XML novice or expert, this text will extend the range of what you can accomplish with XML Schemas, from creating more reusable datatypes to reusing existing schemas. While XML Schemas will perhaps never be as simple as using DTDs, this book succeeds at putting this new standard into reach for any working developer or designer. --Richard Dragan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Thank you, I became certified
The book helped me preparing for the IBM certificate for XML (IBM certified solution developer - XML and related technologies), thank you...

not a very nice book!!
The book does not cover very good examples on each topic specially on Datatypes. Also it is not exclusive on detailing schemas. The kind of material/information provided by this book can be read from any core xml book. XML Bible describes the Schemas very well in one chapter.

To get the job done
I had to create an XML schema out of an XML file that was already existing (I am sure that rarely happens:-)) and I could get the job done by reading half of this book. Would be a five star if not for the typos.

This is a much better way of learning to write XML schemas compared to formal language at the XML schema specification site.

Documents vs Data
This book is worth the price for its discussion of modeling documents vs modeling data.Coming from the document world, I have found relational database types have a hard time understanding the "model" of a document schema.This book explains the document analysis process concisely, but clearly.If you work in a place that is trying to bring the document and database worlds closer together, this book is helpful.

Nice Book!
This is a nice XML Schemas book. It goes through the material thorougly with examples. It also brings up case-scenerios that help one think about tackling the projects we are likely to encounter (or in my case currently encountering) in our XML doings.

Although there are some typos they do not glare the fine material in this booknor hinder learning. ... Read more

Product Description
Provides a discussion of the various XML data management approaches employed in a range of products and applications. Topics covered range from using XML with Oracle9i or SQL Server to embedded XML databases to Tamino. Softcover. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well overview of available products and strategies
I think it is a very good book. It describes several actors in the XML data storage world. It also points out several strategies to deal with XML in relational databases.
It is very easy to read and the language is very clear.
Some experience in XML and how to store it is recommended in order to get the most of it.
I really enjoyed the chapter on eXist as it really goes into details about the index and storage architecture. It is stays quite high level though.
It helps you understand pros and cons of the different products and architectures (client/server as opposed to embedded).
Everyone dealing with XML storage should read it.

Precisely what we needed
At our company, we write Java applications. Soon, we got to the point that we needed a more formal way to read/write data than merely an ad hoc approach. We use XML. The obvious approach is to use a well tested relational database, like those supplied by IBM, Oracle or Microsoft. A problem was getting detailed, objective explanations of what would be involved with each choice. Each vendor is perfectly willing to be our "friend" and supply us with reams of documentation. But still...

The chapters in this book that describe how to hook up XML to those 3 vendors' databases were excellent and clear.

But what we ended up doing was going with something suggested in ANOTHER chapter - building an embedded XML database. You will not see this advocated by a vendor; there is no sale for them here. Other than this book, we found it tough to get lucid explanations of the pros and cons of this route. It will take more work, but we hope it will give better performance - no interprocess communication, for one thing. Plus of course no licence fees, and easier installation and management, since we will have access/own all the source code. This was not our original intention, by any means. But the book's comparative analysis was so persuasive that we ended up taking this road. (Hopefully, it will not be a dead end.)

That one chapter on embedded XML databases was, to us, the most precious thing in the entire book! ... Read more