No comments about Professional XML Development with Apache Tools: Xerces, Xalan, FOP, Cocoon, Axis, Xindice (Wrox Professional Guides).

5 comments about Professional ASP XML.

1. This book was a real dissapointment.

   I LOVE wrox ASP 3.0 Ref and ADO 2.6 Ref. Maybe Wrox should have taken that approach with this book -- instead of trying to act like this book can in any way teach anything about XML.

   The examples in this book are horrid, they aren't in depth enough, and more importantly, don't even correspond well with each other.

   Too many of the chapters jump into the middle of a subject, then try to work back to the beginning and then forward to the end.

   Trust me, I've read the first 5-7 chapters of this book and finally got so sick of all the ambiguity that I went out to the MS Site and learned more in 30 minutes there than I ever could have with this book.

   Some of the case studies in the back are nice, and this book would have made a great reference (had they gone that route), but it is a horrible book to learn how to integrate XML with ASP.

   Save your money.




2. I'm a big fan of the WROX publications (for ASP in particular), but this book was a disappointment. The writing was choppy - as you might expect from a book with 14 guys on the cover. The examples were cryptic and raise more questions than they answer.

   The author(s) seem to me to be attempting to impress us (and each other) with their knowledge of the subject rather than really trying to write a digestible explanation of ways to utilize XML in an ASP environment.




3. This is definitely a good book for developers having good knowledge of ASP and XML and how to integrate XML in ASP. I just loved this book. People who say they don't like it, they have not read the book I am sure. Its sure worth the money!



4. Excellent! for ones who are pro to ASP and need to intergrate XML with ASP! A must buy!



5. I got this book from a friend and after reading a few chapters I checked the Amazon reviews to see if "it was just me" or if this book was horrible. I was surprised to see it had even 3 1/2 starts. Then I read the reviews carefully...
   
   Just days after the book came out, there was a rush of excellent reviews, most of which where only a few sentence long and lacked any detail. Then reality set in. People who really read it, universally hated it. -- And gave detailed examples why.
   
   Now, I'm not going to say the original reviews where astroturf... but read them in order and watch the dates. Then consider you have a book with 14 authors all of whom use the internet and know the power of good Amazon reviews...
   
   Things just don't add up.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself XML in 10 Minutes (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. I have tried to read this book over the course of two weeks, I can't get more than a couple pages without nearly passing out. This thing reads like stereo instructions. I can not comment on how accurate the information is, as the author is so boring, I can't retain any of it. No specific examples, all very vauge references.



2. I've been a software engineer for 20+ years. This is the worst technical book that I can recall. Way too many forward references - "Now I'll use a technical term that I won't explain for another two chapters".

   Most technical books have some forward references but this is ridiculous. To make it worse, some of the terms are never clearly explained even when you get to that section of the book.




3. The author uses lots of phrases which are explained very quickly, and to vague to be of much use. This is a book for beginners, and you wont come very far reading this book, but you might, perhaps, learn the basics.



4. The real title should be "Learn all about what XML is, with a few examples, in a bit over 3 hours, ten minutes at a time." But that wouldn't sell the book by its cover. Very clear, following the "tell you, tell you, told you" style. A bit dry but mostly very easy learning since it's in ten-minute chunks. Takes the mystery out of XML. Opens your eyes to all that it can do. Finally makes clear what a "DOM" is (document object model.



5. The book is written in a very boring English. The authors tries to describe everything in text, whereas a simple example would have gone a long way.
   The examples are scarce inside the text. Well, at least "good examples" are... Whenever he reaches the simple concepts such as parsed entities, he gives a couple of examples, but for more complicated such as unparsed, the examples are vague and trivial.
   The same goes for explaining the attributes. CDATA is explained thoroughly (as in all other resources available on the web), but ID, IDREF, NMTOKEN,... just mentioned in one line, without a single example. I had to spend a lot of time surfing the web to find some clear explanations.
   You could argue that he was trying to present a brief introduction. Well, that's not exactly true. He tries to touch everything in the least clear way possible.
   There are tons of better books on XML out there. Don't waste your time and money.

5 comments about ASP, ADO, and XML Complete.

1. The most valueable book for beginner and yet so usefull for professionals and advance users. If you don't understand and weak in programming concepts, you will find difficulties to cope with it because it is so stright forward to the point and not explaining much like other book. Please don't buy this book, you would regret it, however if you are experince programer then you must buy it!



2. Save the famous tomes; this one actually comes in handy.

   Maybe it's just the size, look and feel of this little workhorse, or maybe it's because it feels like a super-thick pamphlet in your hands that you feel like you can treat in any way without regard to its physical condition, but somehow this book had surprised me my being so darn usable! I have rarely encountered a book that makes it so easy to get right to the subject you're trying to look up, get the facts/explanations you need... and get back to work. My pages are all dog-eared and highlighted. If you're a harried developer, I think you'll know the value of that.

   The premise of the book is simple: combine the good parts of other books into one. So Chapter 1, "The Microsoft Toolset" is lifted straight out of the "E-Commerce Developer's Guide" by Noel Jerke, Chapter 2 is "adapted" from "Visual Basic Developer's Guide to ASP and IIS" by A. Russell Jones, and so on.

   The surprising effect of all of this is that it's like having a research assistant who slogged through a mountain of material (useful and otherwise) for you and then handed you the highlights with post-it notes so you can save time. If one of those sources interests you, you can always read the book it came from. Or cast it aside and move on to the next piece.

   And as books go, it has a high percentage of lookup tables and code samples. Why? Because that's part of the "good stuff" worth "adapting" from the other books. This won't win any book awards, but it does get yanked off the shelf more often than most others.




3. I'm an experienced programmer with 10 years of VB Client/Server and new to the WEB. The WEB is maddeningly different. This book has provided me with THE road map of modern ASP development. It is well organized. Each chapter is well selected. The content of each chapter is such that the subject is adequately covered and I can always get the book from which the chapter is extracted if I want more information. As one commenter put it, its like getting the work product of a half dozen research assistants, each of whom sifted dozens of books.

   It is clearly aimed at the person who wants to understand the subject. There are no "To Create..." sequences that walk through the IDE to create a brain-dead and useless example so prevalent in the Microsoft programmer's guides. It assumes that the reader has a high school education, a keen mind and is willing to use both. Looking for a book that will do your thinking for you? This is not it. There are plenty of sample code snippets. They are there to give the reader working examples that augment the text.

   I anticipate keeping this book handy as a reference on WEB ASP assignments.

   There is a caveat for Microsoft oriented WEB developers. It does not address Visual Interdev. For that topic I recommend Wrox's "Beginning WEB Development with Visual Interdev 6."

   I should also mention that this book does not teach one how to program. There are other resources for that. It does teach relational database principles, SQL, ADO, XML, and how to use XML in Microsoft SQL Server. The crowning glory is an excellent "class project," a walk through Microsoft's Biz Talk application.




4. I ordered the book and read it. I think that the book is not good for any ASP programmer. First, it is not complete. For example, it didn't cover server.transfer, which is an excellent feature in ASP 3.0. Second, the description about ADO is so simple that I cannot get any idea about ADO.

   Why did I buy it? It is cheap and heavy. Another reason was the other users' review. Based on my experience, I suggest you to avoid this book as either study material or reference.




5. This is an outstanding book for ASP programmers ... It serves as a great reference source on a variety of topics. I have been very impressed with the depth and breadth of coverage (contrary to one of the reviews I read). Great value. It'll remain on my shelf for a long time.

No comments about Mastering XMI: Java Programming with XMI, XML, and UML (With CD-ROM).

5 comments about XML Internationalization and Localization (Sams White Book).

1. At last! A book that addresses a key instructional and informational need in the localization (l10n) and internationalization (i18n) industries. To date, there is no single authoritative source on the subject of XML l10n and i18n, despite the fact that XML is a key driver behind the growth of the Internet, B2B, content management and large-scale data exchange and will be increasingly important in the future, and central to e-commerce and globalization in general.

   Up to now, most writings on XML, that I have seen, are generally non-l10n and i18n specific, and only make reference to these areas in passing, as part of a wider technological discussion. There is development information available on the Internet about XML standards, which includes sections on i18n, but this is divorced from any business logic or discussion on practical deployments within the localization industry. The best discussions I have seen on the possible applications of XML tend to be piecemeal, such as white papers or magazine articles in publications. This book changes all that.

   The structure is very good - comprehensive without being overwhelming and it is well thought out and illustrated with code samples and screen shots. Content ranges from a practical and clear education on XML technology, through to where XML i18n and l10n fits into the product development cycle, content authoring and localization processes. Central to the book's appeal is it's practicality and relevance to modern day industry developments such as XLIFF, ITS, online translation, translation memory use and even WML and Flash too! The book is aimed at doing, not at theorizing, and it fills a key gap in the market.

   Potential for this book’s influence is huge given the trends in business models and product/service deployment globally over the Internet. I think this book could become more important than Nadine Kano’s "Developing International Software for Windows 95 and NT". It should be on the bookshelf of every serious content development house NOW, nestling up to "The Lexus and The Olive Tree" (Thomas Friedman) and "Translating Into Success" (Robert C. Sprung, Eds.) as a well-thumbed, coffee-stained source of reference for anyone seriously interested in developing and maintaining a globalization presence.

   I would certainly recommend the book to all content developers, and translation tools development teams. I would envisage the book could be useful for content authors and developers of all types - DB architects, content managers, documentation writers, ML website developers, etc. Anyone who needs to develop, manage and maintain global content, which has to be localized and deployed in multiple languages.




2. This is a great book for the 'doers' in the product globalization technology fields. Well worth the money. Extremely credible combination of industry guru Yves Savourel's content with some additional flavoring of content from globalization expert Ultan O'Broin of Oracle Corporation provide a wide-ranging discourse on how to design, develop and build XML content that is multilingual and fully globalized and easily translated. For the first time we see the words "pseudo-translation" mentioned in a book at this level (please take note Nancy Kano et al) as well as the treatment of the localization process as a business activity (and not some kind of warm armpit partnership between developers and translators). Brilliant. I hope the book heralds a new departure in content creation and also attitudes in the internationalization and localization industry - it's badly needed. My only quibble is the lack of CD-ROM with example XML files that we might have used to evaluate our own XML tools and processes with to compare with the books findings.



3. Yves Savourel has a firm grasp of the technical aspects of XML development - completed by a wealt of experience in the product globalization arena. The writing style in XML internationalizaion and Localization is clear and unambiguous - easily understood by the novice and guru alike, and using terms that are familiar to anyone working in the internationalization and localization industries. The book's content is comprehensive with useful and practical examples, directly applicable to the real world. Thorough, interesting examination of one of critical development formats for entrprise, database and internet computing, the book is much needed! I hope there is more to come.



4. Yves Savourel's book on XML Internationalization and Localization is an excellent resource and definitely worth reading for anyone working with XML in an international environment.

   I found the first part of the book especially helpful, the second part is very focussed on translation processes, assuming that web content internationalization and localization occurs in a similar fashion to software product development, which is not necessarily the case. "XML Tools for Internationalization and Localization" might have been a more appropriate title.

   The comparison of translation tools is very long and difficult to read, with unnecessary screenshots showing all samples. A tabular overview on standards compliance and supported features, together with one set of testcases, would be sufficient. The XML database chapter, on the other hand, could be expanded with more information on native XML databases.

   Typographical conventions leave room for improvement, including the choice of fonts, indentation in structured example and the overuse of line continuation characters in places where line breaks are not significant.




5. This book was truly a pleasure to read. A good writing style, a lot of information, and a tight editing job that really makes both the messenger and the message look better. What more could a person ask for?

   XML is definitely out there, and it seems to be a lot more than just a buzzword. Finally there is a book that makes it seem more accessible to international markets.

   Well, not everything was perfect. But it was so much better than some of the other books out there, that it definitely deserves 4/5 stars.

5 comments about .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 2: Networking Library, Reflection Library, and XML Library (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. The authors continue the exposition of Volume 1, into these classes of .NET. Here, the topics include networking, XML and reflection. The number of XML classes is less than for the others. But they give solid ability to read and write XML data. The XML functionality seems on a par with what is currently offered in Java 1.4 and 1.5.
   
   The importance of the networking classes is because so much of our efforts revolve around the Internet these days. So you can find out how to make a request to a web server using http. Plus classes for credentialling and security. There is even a neat little IWebProxy interface, for getting to hosts using proxy servers.
   
   Under the rubric of reflection, .NET also includes internationalisation [i18n] issues. They call it globalisation, which I think is basically the same thing. There are classes that encode culture-specific data, like calendars and languages. Microsoft has built out .NET with scads of this information. It's a global marketplace for your efforts, right? .NET lets you take advantage of this.
   
   Like the first edition, the book goes beyond being a mere printing of man pages. Each class gets example code that may often be the simplest way to get a quick understanding of a common usage of that class. Plus the informal remarks help this understanding along.



2. Being a reader of Brad Abram's blog, I had found very interesting the posts, taken from SLAR vol. 1, dedicated on commenting a subset of the Framework Class Libraries (FCL).
   So when he asked for volunteers on reviewing the second volume, I didn't think twice in being one of them.
   In the weeks that followed I shared my time between working, studying for 70-320 and reviewing annotations and code samples.
   I have to tell you: I really believe in the idea of telling us mere mortals the stories behind the scenes on developing the FCL.
   Only on this two part series, you get to know why the things were done the way they are.
   Since much of the book's value is in its annotations, the Annotation Index is extremely useful in finding comments made by a particular contributor.
   I missed the poster that volume one had and the contributions of Jeffrey Richter, Kit George and Anders Hejlsberg. Maybe they didn't have much to comment on the libraries covered by this volume.
   On the other hand, in this volume we have great contributions from Adam Nathan (COM Interop), Suzanne Cook (Fusion), Joel Pobar (Reflection, Rotor).
   WinFx is coming with all those new shinny APIs such as WCF (Indigo), WPF (Avalon), WWF (Workflow), etc. But don't you forget that they are all developed on top of the libraries contained in these two books.
   If you want to be a reference within your team for the years to come, these two books are among the ones to read to pursue this goal.



3. I give the authors a lot of credit for doing a lot of work in building examples for this book. But my question is, how much better is this than the MSDN? Especially since the MSDN is built in to the environment. That being said, this is a nice piece of work and if you are a hard core .NET coder it's definitely worth a look.



4. 
   Excerpt from C# Online.NET Review (wiki.CSharp-Online.NET):
   "This book is the authoritative reference to the .NET Framework libraries: Networking Library, Reflection Library, and XML Library. Each type has its own chapter with the following features:
   
   - Header - namespace name, type name, library name.
   - Type summary - C# declaration syntax for all members.
   - Type description - detailed usage description.
   - Annotations - annotations by key Microsoft design team members including Anders Hejlsberg.
   - Example - C# source code and program output."



5. Very well organized, excellent archives, and good source code. Thesee libraries make an excellent reference for coding your application

5 comments about Securing Web Services with WS-Security: Demystifying WS-Security, WS-Policy, SAML, XML Signature, and XML Encryption.

1. This book would help you if you need an introduction to Web services security standards. If you need to know the strategies for how to implement then this book may not help much. Some of the specifications discussed in the book is not complete and there is lot of confusion in the standards committee moving forward. I bought this book before I bought the Core Security Patterns which details both the standards and patterns-based implementation strategies for Web services security. This book also needs a revision in terms of updating to SAML 2.0, WS-Security 1.1, WS-I Basic Security profile.



2. i am an architect working on large-scale web services on j2ee and .net ddevlopment and deplyment. I bought this book for getting myself introduced to ws-security and saml. if you would like to know the security specifications for web services at a high-level you may find this book useful. If you are looking at the practical aspects of how to implement them in a j2ee or .net web services you wil find limited help. The coverage on ws-* specs are little bit old as new revisions are already out.



3. This book is a good introduction to the application of security to Web Services and SOA. The authors focus on "message level" security versus "transport level" security, and its application to Web Services. The book explains standards: WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-SecurePolicy and other current standards at the time of publishing (2004).
   
   However these standards are constantly evolving and this book needs to be updated on a regular basis.
   
   Gary E. Smith
   SOA Network Architect
   SOA Networks



4. This book delivers good introduction to WS-* specs beyond that I don't find much help. From a developer perspective, the book does'nt help with good examples, it is missing with coding guidance and also lacks detail about the PKI in Web services. Possibly this book is too early to market before the specs are endorsed by OASIS. It's time for a revision..otherwise I could've added two more stars.



5. Agree completely with all of the other reviewers in respect to practical working examples and detailed information. This is nothing more than a high-level overview of documentation and specifications you can easily find yourself on the internet. Look elsewhere (and yeah, I'm still looking myself) for solid information about how to design and deploy WS-* applications.

5 comments about XML How to Program.

1. This book was written in easily understood jargon that helped take the mystery out of XML programming for me. Additionally, the links to actual working code allowed me the opportunity to watch it work. The self review and tests at the end of each chapter really ensures that you get everything out of the chapter that you need to continue on. Loved it. You will, too.



2. I much enjoyed this book as the presentation of complex topics is made very clear. I feel that this book helped me to understand several topics that I never fully understood before (for instance XLink).

   Generally the approach in this book is to give a clear and concise coverage of each important topics. This is the best approach to learn but reader should be aware that the coverage is not exhaustive enough for the book to serve as reference. In fact I would have prefered that the author added complete reference on several topics (XML DOM, XPath, XSLT, XSLFO) instead of the 'bonus programming chapter'.

   The book is catered for programmers. As a result the table of content will satisfy programmers (unlike many beginning XML books it gives ample coverage of XML APIs) but examples are sometimes non-trivial and written in high-level programming languages. Although generally, it must be said that effort has been made to use various programming languages (i.e. Perl, Java, ASP, etc) so that everybody should find some useful examples.

   I would have prefered additional coverage of XML services, SOAP, etc. Also, I found that several chapters (Programming java, programming Perl, etc.), while not useless, were clearly off topic and added to fill-in pages. Only other criticism is that the book is really quite expensive. However, it is one of the best book to LEARN xml (even though you may require additional reference to use it).

   One last thing: do not buy the CD ROM training kit of the book. The CD ROM included is very disappointing.

   Edit: I wrote this review a while back. Since then, I revisited the book and I must say that it does appear dated. In particular the coverage of schema (an important topic) fails to suitably cover the W3C Schema recommendation and focusses mostly on Microsoft's version of schema which are now hardly used. For this reason, I would recommend another book instead (for instance, Beginning XML from Wrox) until the publisher comes with an updated edition.




3. I recently took an XML class at my university, and Deitel's "XML How to Program" was our textbook.

   I have to say, it's one of my least-favorite XML books--nay, one of my least-favorite *computer* books overall.

   Sure, it's thick and heavy, something many geeks like in a book (myself included). But within the covers are sometimes rambling discussions about a particular topic that leave you still wondering what you were supposed to learn, while other sections get cut short just when things are getting interesting.

   My biggest beef: You won't be able to complete some of the exercises without the use of outside resources. Of course, multiple sources are great for any project, but you should certainly be able to answer a book's exercises with just that book! (Specifically, one exercise was within the XSLT chapter, and deals with a number-type element.)

   When I was assigned to write an essay on a topic, XML Topic Maps, I first consulted the book. Only a couple of paragraphs as I recall. RDF, an up-and-coming XML technology, gets nary a page.

   Mind you, there is a bit of good in the book, mainly with the introductory material. It's a bit Java-centric, but that's to be expected, and there is a decent Java primer in the back of the book. I also appreciate the code samples on both the CD-ROM and Deitel's Web site.

   I wanted to like the book, but I found it useless for most of the projects I was working on. In a different class, we used Marchal's "XML by Example, 2/e", and I vastly prefer that book over this one. Especially with the price of the Deitel book, I can't recommend this one to anyone.




4. I read some of the other reviewer's comments on the book and I agree with some and disagree with others. In comparison to other popular XML books it's not perfect but it's solid. If you are like me, a beginning XML programmer then you need to learn XML hands on and the book gives just that. Giving you examples and problems to apply what you just read is the best way to learn and thats what this book does. I read the "XML by Example" by Marchal and although that was a solid book also, it doesnt give you the material or examples for YOU to practice. Marchal doesnt offer the code samples for download either. One reviewer said that in order to complete this book's self review exercises you have to use outside sources. This is true but think about it...what better way to learn than by being challenged?
   
   I also read some of Erik T. Wray's (O'reilly series) XML book. That book is the better of all 3 books in my opinion but again it doesnt offer you that hands on material that I need. Love or hate the Deitel's books, the bottom line is that until these other authors challenge the enthusiast on whatever topic they are writing about people will always turn to these books. Yes the line by line styles are annoying but you know exactly what functions, (tags in this case) the author is referencing. Theory is great but the only way you will truly know any language you learn is by doing it! Last but not least I DO NOT WORK FOR THE COMPANY!!!!!!



5. I bought this text thinking it would compliment the E-business and E-commerce How to Program text (it was recommended that way). However, it is really just a reconstituted version of the other text, which also falls short of its advertised use. Don't waste your money!

5 comments about J2EE and XML Development.

1. The title of this book tells the story, except that it should probably include the word "Overview". It is an easy read that provides solid information, but it is by no means a reference. It offers a nice, quick description of several aspects of Java and XML development, but I kept waiting for the meat. If you are new to XML in Java, this book will bring you up to speed on the APIs and uses of XML.

   It starts with a review of J2EE architecture and XML development, which is helpful because the authors' perspective on these topics sets the stage for how they suggest using XML in a J2EE project. It covers the various XML-related Java APIs (JAXP, JAXM, etc.), and these are the parts that I found most useful. It also discusses some architectural options, which I expected to be quite helpful, but they needed more detail and discussion.




2. This book gives you a very well-organized and informative tour of what's happening in the XML arena, the problem is this particular area of technology already so wide and so fast-expanding it's very difficult to get into the deep details of all areas, but the authors have done an excellent job of choosing the right technologies of tomorrow and delving into the details of those with sufficient background-story and code examples; in fact I would have given this book 5 stars if it didn't waste the first 40 so pages on explaining the client-server and peer-to-peer architectures and some extremely basic/boring J2EE and other generic topics, which has no place in a techy book like this. I would urge the reader to skip thru Ch. 1 in 4 minutes and dive right into the next ones, which are really very well written.

   Beginners may use this book as an invaluable reference, intermediate level developers should only look into area of their interest, even advanced developers might find a few topics of their interest. Some of the topics the authors had to cover in a hurry, I'll say they have done a very good job in taking one specific feature and dissecting it, for example which discussing JSPs, the book lists a working example of JSP tag and explains it well, I'll say overall, the book is very well balanced between providing theoretical and background information on XML technologies and providing actual implementation examples. And yes, they did not miss out on the design patterns which are useful in this context!

   Errata
   page# 144: Boolean (instead of boolean) has been listed as a primitive type.




3. The book covers a wide range of XML technologies and its implementations in Java. Most of the examples/patterns discussed in the book apply equally well or can be easily adapted for non-J2EE Java application.
   Some examples use depreciated APIs, some use APIs that no longer exist in latest packages. It's not a big problem and equivalents usually can be easily found. Just be aware how fast the technologies are evolving.



4. Java and XML have a great synergy, they marry together to create a "Write once, run anywhere" with a "platform independent data" paradigm. The nice thing about this is that you can keep the service interface relatively stable (e.g. use XML document instead of a specific data structure). But often what people overlook is, if you choose not to expose/distribute your data model directly (using classic data structure/class), then you have to expose/distribute the meta data of the data model (in XML world, this is called schema). Once the schema is changed (as you change in the data structure/class), you are pretty much facing the same problem as in the classic data model, the communicating parties have to know what is changed and change (the parsing rule at least) accordingly. Particularly, in the internal system, the benefit of using XML interface is dramatically reduced.
   
   The authors of book are trying to push every data model in the interface by using XML document, even the data persistence, along with various X-technologies. That is a very "dangerous mind" if not done carefully, since XML is not a panacea in design and development. Even in modeling data, XML is not one size fit all. So when is it a good idea to use XML for your data? The following is that I quoted from Ted Neward's blog,
   
   When your data is naturally hierarchical to begin with
   When exchange with foreign platforms (which is to say, platforms not native to what you're currently authoring in) is important
   When pre-existing tool support (XSLT, XML viewers, import/export utilities, etc) is of paramount importance
   
   As you can see, there are some constraints before you decide to go with XML. Not mentioning the performance overhead. Though authors mentioned that designers need to justify the usage of XML by various criteria, but this is a book about promoting XML. :) Don't be trapped.
   
   Overall, the book contains some useful information about various XML related technologies, particularly the chapter 5 "User Interface Development" (which is quite funny for a server side development book). And the information is too general or shallow to be useful in the real world development, you need to dig more into the technology by yourself from this introduction.
   
   There are some examples showing how the concept could be working in the real world. But they are very rudimentary. Some specs the authors used (e.g. JAX-RPC) are already upgraded or changed. As a book on such popular topics regarding J2EE and XML, it sets the bar too low.



5. First of all, it is out of date.
   And, it is not enough for a developer to learn how to use XML in J2EE environment. Yes, it does have some sample code, but not enough.