5 comments about XML Pocket Reference.

1. The majority of the new material in this book is on different schema specifications. Schema, Relax NG and Schematron are covered. A handy book to have around when you are hacking XML. The online free documentation is not as handy as the content as it's organized in this book.



2. The other review book I received yesterday was XML Pocket Reference (3rd Edition) by Simon St. Laurent and Michael Fitzgerald. Depending on what you're looking for, this may or may not the book for you...
   
   Contents: Introduction; XML Structures; Document Type Definitions; W3C XML Schema; RELAX NG; Schematron; XML Specifications; Index
   
   Admittedly, trying to cover "XML" in a single book is a daunting task. XML is made up of so many standards and technologies (XPath, XForms, XML Schema, etc.) that you either have to specialize your coverage area or be ready to publish a *really* heavy book. To their credit, the authors stripped out XSLT into it's own pocket guide. That act keeps this particular book small enough to fit in your pocket and that's good. But if you're wanting information on XSLT and think this might be your book, forget it.
   
   Next, the XML Structures and Document Type Definition chapters seemed to be a little confusing. There was something introduced that I had never heard of before... something called "Productions" followed by syntax that looked like regular expression language. Never having seen that term before in my XML reading, I went back to the introduction to see what the authors wanted to convey there. The only explanation was "As each structure is discussed, applicable productions from the XML 1.0 and 1.1 specs will be listed in the order in which they appear in the specs." So, I still really don't know what productions are, and I probably have to go to the specs to find that out. The description of each section in an XML document, like CDATA or declarations, was nice though.
   
   The book starts to become really useful when you get into the XML Schema section. There they go into each of the elements along with each attribute that can be used with the element. This is the type of reference information I'd expect to see in a pocket guide. Something I can turn to quickly as a refresher for what parameters or attributes I can use with an element, or to gain a quick understanding of an element I haven't seen before. This same structure is followed for the RELAX NG and Schematron schema languages, so the book will be helpful if you live in those worlds also.
   
   Basically, I found the XML Pocket Guide to be a little "hit and miss". If the title had been "XML Schema Pocket Guide", I'd have felt like the book was pretty on target. Trying to call it the XML Pocket Guide seems to infer there's a lot more in here than there actually is, and a buyer might get a copy and be highly disappointed in what it doesn't cover. If you're looking for schema info, you'll love the book. If that's a secondary reason for you to get the book, you might be disappointed.



3. My problem with this book is that I was hoping it would concentrate more on just XML Schema, something I think most people would prefer. Of course, how I am qualified to make that kind of statement is beyond me ;-) But here is my reasoning: A fairly large portion of the book covers DTDs, RELAX NG, and Schematron. DTDs, while ubiquitous, are being supplanted by XML Schema. Usage of RELAX NG and Schematron are, by the book's own admission, not widespread. So it seems that all three of these technologies could have been admitted, as were many other XML-related technologies (XSLT, XPath, etc.)
   In addition, I feel the regular-expression-like inclusions should have been omitted. These include something referred to as Productions in one part of the book and Contents in another. Maybe good for hard-core CS people, but pretty much useless for those of us who just want to work with XML Schema. An ideal replacement would have been some examples illustrating sample usage of various elements and attributes.
   All in all, the descriptions accompanying the elements and attributes are pretty good. Unfortunately, that accounts for only about one-third of the book. But it only costs $10 and it is small, so maybe it's worth it.



4. I am one of the coauthors of this book. I feel compelled to write a review in support of my friend and coauthor, Simon St. Laurent, who wrote the section on XML Schema. Of the 160 pages of text in XML Pocket Reference, Third Edition, 71 pages are dedicated to XML Schema. That's 44 percent of the book. Of the 71 pages, 16 pages cover examples of XML Schema.
   
   DTDs are covered in 15 pages, RELAX NG in 32, and Schematron in 10 (57 pages total). XML Schema receives the most extensive treatment of any of the topics covered, and within the limitations of the size of the book, Simon did an excellent job.
   
   XSLT and XPath were not included in this book because a new, separate volume has been dedicated to those topics-XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference, by Evan Lenz, which also appeared in August 2005.
   
   As for the production rules, they were included for programmers and others who need grammars. The productions, which come from the XML spec, are a means for understanding XML syntax precisely, and it would have been unwise, in my view, to omit them.



5. I bought this guide because I needed a quick lookup for XML schema elements (something you'd think would be readily available online, but isn't - at least not in a usable form). The bulk of the book (70 of its 162 pages - about half) is dedicated to XSD, so I was very happy with what I got. The first 30 pages cover XML itself (all the nitpicking details like predefined entities, what characters are allowed in attribute names, etc). The next 17 pages cover DTD (which you may occasionally still need to know, even these days). The next 70 cover XML Schema, and the book finishes up with an additional 43 pages on Relax-NG and Schematron (two competing, and not very common, schema definition formats).
   
   I agree with other reviewers that the book would have been complete without the Relax-NG and Schematron coverage, but it would have just been 43 pages shorter if that was the case - there's really not much else they could have said about XML, DTD and XSD and still have been a concise "pocket reference". This book is actually pretty thick for an O'Reilly pocket reference - I have four other pocket guides on my bookshelf right now, and the other three have 120, 124 and 66 pages each. By that standard, I figure the coverage of Relax-NG and Schematron were just a "buy one get one free" type of add-on, especially since this book costs the same as all the other pocket reference books.
   
   This book is a perfect reference for somebody who needs a quick, handy reference to XML schema and the occasional XML rule.

5 comments about XML For Dummies.

1. If you want to kill your time without learning anything, this book is absolute right for you.



2. As a complete newbie to XML this was a good starter. As I got deeper into XML I found several mistakes/deficiencies in the book, and sometimes the author just flat out seemed to not know what he was talking about. For instance, the claim on page 86 that (#CDATA) is a valid DTD element content definition is flat out wrong. His description of Schema element declarations (pp. 114-115) teaches that using globals/refs is the only way to define complex elements, and is inappropriate for his example. He makes no mention of globals at all, leaving the reader confused. I have ceased to trust this book as a valid source of XML information.



3. These reviews are all very misleading as they refer to a previous edition of the book which is no longer available, the third edition of XML For Dummies. XML For Dummies, 4th edition, the book featured here, addresses many of the concerns raised in the reviews of the third edition.



4. I'm never disappointed with Dummies books and this one is no exception. Great read, easy to learn.



5. I usually read just to get a big picture. I thought this did the job. Dummies Books are a lot more palatable than other books on topics as dry as this.

3 comments about Word 2003 Document Automation with VBA, XML, XSLT, and Smart Documents (Wordware Applications Library).

1. Quite often you see book titles that unfortunately do not match the subject content. This one certainly does! The back cover states that it sets out to explain how to:
   
   - Automate documents with a minimum of programming by using Word's native functionality
   - Use VBA to create document automation solutions
   - Record macros, create automated templates, format and manipulate files using Word and build documents dynamically
   - Create, edit and format XML documets
   - Develop smart documents solutions to guide users through a variety of repetitive tasks
   - Transform XML using WordprocessingML, XSLT, XPath, smart documents and web services technologies
   
   Ok, to be fair I didn't find anything on web services explicitly but it still gets us over 99% of the way through delivering on its expectations.
   
   This book has hit a niche area for word users wanting to create smarter documents with no other book providing coverage of this subject matter as intimately or in a way as easy to follow as this book. It is perfect for people who routinely have to write legal contracts, functional specifications and general technical documentation as it allows you to fully leverage off Word's capabilities in letting you work smarter.
   
   I did not own any other books by Wordware and this seemed to be a bit out there in their list of publications so I was initially a bit hesitant about buying this book. As it turns out I shouldn't have been! Scott Driza presents the subject matter well and in a very succint way - this book has just over 400 pages in which it manages to cover quite a lot of ground!
   
   I bought this book primarily to concentrate on the XML, XSLT and Smart Documents features, but have found that I even picked up a trick or two in relation to VBA-based templates. For those who like using shortcut keys, Appendix A will be a God send as it has the most exhaustive list of Word commands and shortcut keys I have ever seen!
   
   The book devotes approximately half of its pages to VBA and assumes no prior knowledge of VBA, XML, XSLT or Smart Documents. It doesn't cover all subject areas exhaustively but it gets you started and tells you where to get additional materials.
   
   I would have liked to have seen a bit more detail on XML schemas although the the book does show you how to get Word to automatically generate an inferred schema based on XML mark-up. That is pretty much the only reason why I didn't give it a 5-star rating.
   
   If you are an IT professional, engineer, lawyer, technical writer or any other type of knowledge worker; do yourself a favour - stop creating your documents the hard way and buy this book. It will more than pay for itself the first time you start applying the concepts, techniques and technologies it refers to.



2. This is one of the least useful books I have read in my 10+ years in the IT business. Written from an academic standpoint, there were few useful examples offered and no subject was discussed in enough detail to be useful. Examples were vauge at best.
   
   While this book got me excited about the topic of document automation, I am unable to create a custom Smart Document solution from scratch after reading this book from cover to cover.
   
   Buyer beware: This is a "What Is" book, not a "How To" book.



3. I've read the majority of the content of this book and I have found it to be very useful. The author's coverage of the basic of WordProcessML is excellent. The first seven chapters contain good examples of how to automate Word.

5 comments about The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML.

1. This book is essential for those building solutions with Sql Svr. It is really a developer's take on how to create applications based on the world's best database. There are chapters on database design, source code control, design patterns, testing, and many, many others. The SqlXml info is the deepest and best of any of the SQl books I have found. I highly recommend this book.



2. 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!



3. 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.



4. 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.



5. 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 1001 good practical ideas that the hard-work 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.

5 comments about Java and XML.

1. This book was probably useful back in 2000. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since then, and some of the information in this book is now flat our wrong.
   
   For example the chapter about DOM objects was not updated to include information about recent api releases. So when the book says there is no simple way to serialize a DOM object, that simply is no longer true. You can now do it with the JAXP api.
   
   The book has other problems as well. For example, the section that describes the difference between XSL and XSLT is extremely misleading and not helpful at all.
   
   This is one of the few books that I intend to return



2. Are you developing with Java and need to use XML? If you are, then this book is for you. Authors Brett McLaughlin and Justin Edelson, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that that cuts through all of the hype about XML and put it to work.
   
   McLaughlin and Justin Edelson, begin with the basics of XML. Then, the authors cover three ways of defining the structure of XML documents. Next, they introduce the Simple API for XML (SAX). They also cover less-used, but still powerful items in the API. The authors continue by covering DOM basics. Then, they discuss the various Level 2 and Level 3 DOM modules like Traversal, Range, Events, Style, HTML, Load and Save, and Validation. Next, the authors examine the Java API for XML Processing. In addition, they also show you how to SAX and how it compares to both SAX and DOM. They continue by examining JDOM, a Java-specific object model API. Then, the authors examine another Java-specific object model API, dom4j. Next, they cover JAXB 1.0 and 2.0, as well as the general basics of data binding. Furthermore, the authors show you how to syndicate content. They continue by looking at a variety of techniques for using XML in the presentation, or visual portion of web applications. Finally, the authors provide some brief overview of technologies not covered in depth in this book.
   
   This most excellent book shows you how to use the APIs, tools, and tricks of XML to build real world applications. Perhaps more importantly, this book offers a new approach to managing information that touches everything from configuration files to web sites.



3. This edition was published in Dec. 2006, so when I bought it Jul. 2007 it was the freshest book on the topic that I found. There are a lot of different Java XML tools with overlapping funtions SAX, DOM, JAXP, JAXB, Castor, JDOM, dom4j . . . This really help sort them out.



4. I'm almost finished with this book, but have yet to determine what its purpose is. There is a lot of code about a lot of APIs, but it is not clear how one should approach Java & XML using this book. I think this book was a product of O'Reilly's "Rough Cuts" program, and it is true the book is very roughly written and all the good stuff got cut. Maybe all the material which would make this a good book is on the website.
   
   I must admit I'm very disappointed with O'Reilly as of late. Their books are going down hill rapidly, and I find I'm looking at other publishers (APress) much more often. I used to go to O'Reilly's website almost daily to see what is coming out next, but now I'm considering removing the Ora bookmark from my browser because of lack of use and to create space for other URLs.
   
   I really wish O'Reilly would get their act together and start publishing some well written and well edited books again.



5. Ho trovato questo libro molto interessante.
   
   Copre le varie API disponibili per JAVA per gestire file XML: SAX, DOM, JAXP, StAX, JDOM, dom4j. Inoltre vengono trattati anche alcuni argomenti avanzati, utili per apprendere al meglio l'uso di queste API.
   
   Il libro e' colmo di codice ed e' proprio il codice ad essere utilizzato come strumento didattico. Codice e diagrammi UML riempiono tutte le pagine.
   
   E' un libro molto pratico, rivolto ai programmatori. E' necessario avere una piccola infarinatura riguardo l'XML: viene trattato brevemente nei primi capitoli.
   
   E' consigliato a chi ama libri con un approccio pragmatico.
   
   mircha

1 comments about Beginning XML Databases (Wrox Beginning Guides).

1. I work with a lot of school leavers and people outside IT and often have to advise them on how to empower themselves in IT in the right way. Surely SQL and databases are one of the first topics people should understand. HTML was also high on the list. With this book, the author has combined all of them in one making it a very relevant combination for today's beginner. I will recommend this book to school leavers, financial people and people outside IT wanting to empower themselves quickly. Another great advantage of XML and databases is the platform independence. Very well done to the author for combining these topics at the entry level in such an easiliy understandable way!

5 comments about Definitive XML Schema (The Charles F. Goldfarb Definitive XML Series).

1. Since all other reviews are very positive, I'm here to offer a different opinion.
   
   I've had this book for over a year now, and I barely use it. Each time I attempt to find something useful in it, the information is scattered over the entire book making it extremely difficult to understand.
   
   For example, right now I'm looking up the "ref" attribute, and according to the index, it appears on 7 different locations throughout the book, each portion shorter than 1 page. Also, I have seen many tables scattered throughout with exact same information, or one or two differing field values, making it very confusing to understand which table is doing what.
   
   And at over 500 pages long, there is a large amount of filler information in this book.
   
   Is this book "definitive"? It looks like it is. Is this book usable? Absolutely not. This is one of the worst investments I've made in computer books.
   
   And there is a place about strings in the book where it differs from the official W3C specs.



2. Walmsley's book is the one I go to as the reference for W3C Schema. It is clear and very accurate and reliable. I find the examples relevant and helpful.
   
   I had to chuckle at a previous review that couldn't understand why something was found in multiple places. Well perhaps it is used in several places. I would be happy that the index was thorough. Schema is a somewhat complicated language but Walmsley provides transparency and order.
   
   I recommend this book to my clients and in classes I teach on XML and Schema regulalrly.



3. Imagine yourself sitting in front of the formal w3c standard(s) and trying to read it cover to cover...
   
   I tried that and it is very hard, boring, and very unproductive.
   
   Now, try to read it with this book as a companion -- you will find yourself understanding everything on the spot.
   
   There are a lot of useful examples and explanations which are (in my opinion) missing from the standard's text. This is what makes this book so useful.
   
   Also, the organization of the book makes it very easy to locate information you need and to use it as a reference book.
   
   Trying to understand the fine details of the XML Schema standard and the capabilities of XML Schema? Trying to implement an XML parser or an XML validator? If so -- you will probably appreciate this book and will probably use it a lot!
   
   Even now, several years later, I sill find it useful and revealing.



4. This book was very helpful in getting me up to speed with XML Schema. It was written well and I have provided the added detail I needed to go above and beyond up at work. Priscilla's Walmsley's extensive experience is conveyed well in the book and has proven to be a great resource.



5. XML Schema can be really confusing but this book has made it much more clear to me. In particular, I muddled through my project never really understanding things like namespaces and elementFormDefault and weirdnesses like why complex types can have simple content, until I decided to sit down and read this book. Now I feel like I've got a handle on how these things work, plus it made me realize that XML Schema has a lot more features I didn't even know about. The chapter on extensibility was a bonus because it compared and contrasted some of these advanced features and gave me a better idea when to use them. The index is good, too - which makes it easy to use as a reference.

3 comments about New Perspectives on Creating Web Pages with HTML, XHTML, and XML, Comprehensive, Second Edition (New Perspectives (Paperback Course Technology)).

1. One of the best books on the subject I've encountered in the last thirteen years of working with the internet. The tutorials are excellent - in that they appeared to be well debugged prior to publication. They do an excellent job in preparing a student for any of the four cases found at the end of each section. The only weakness encountered was that there was no comprehensive reference table of tags and associated attributes.



2. What originally attracted me to this text was that the code examples use valid XHTML. Unfortunately, the book is obviously a rewrite of an older book written with 1995-era design and structure approaches. Formatting attributes within the HTML tags have merely been replaced by inline styles, defeating the purpose of having a style sheet in the first place. Not until Tutorial 7 is there an external style sheet. There is even a chapter on how to design a site with tables; i.e., the old school way, and one can sense the author's comfort throughout that chapter. While it's good to be familiar with that approach, since one will run into such sites and have to work with them, to have such a large portion of the text devoted to it seems inappropriate in 2006 (this edition's printing). When HTML elements are employed in a modern fashion, there is some faltering, such as the label tag for an input element being followed by a break tag instead of setting its display property to block in the stylesheet, thus requiring as many break tags as there are labels. And as with many of the Course Technology books, the page numbers restart with each major section: the HTML section ends at HTML 578, then there are some additional cases (HTML ADD 1, HTML ADD 2, etc), then XML ends at XML 224, then there are appendices HTML A1 through HTML J16, then an XML appendix, then Ref 1 through 27 (reference section). At least the index indicates both the HTML and XML sections. One could complete this very thick book and be an expert at creating web sites the way we used to do it in the mid-nineties, the only enhancement being that the sites would be valid. I do think that many of the exercises could be reworked to be quite valuable, and I should mention that much of the instructional text is well done. The book is printed on very thin paper, as are many of the Course textbooks, but there is color throughout. I would not recommend this text to anyone considering adopting it as a class text.



3. This is a typical course technology book with sections that go on forever leaving the students to wonder about what they just created and how could they ever do it on their own. Do your students a favor and skip this book.

5 comments about XQuery.

1. XML programmers and database users will find Priscilla Walmsley's XQUERY a specific, valuable reference which is based on the Xquery 1.0 standards and which offers a basic tutorial on specifications and programming with the query language base. Query writers should have some knowledge of XML basics to use this, and can quickly progress into the 'advanced' category using an overview and tour of Xquery which includes guidelines for working with different types of data and an A-Z reference to the program's functions.



2. This is a nice, comprehensive book written by someone highly qualified to talk about XQuery. The author, Priscilla Walmsley, was a member of the W3C XML Schema Working Group.
   
   Now that XML is being added to database management systems, DBAs and database developers will need to know how to query that data. And they'll more than likely be using XQuery to do it. As such, this book would be a good way for database professionals to gain expertise on XQuery.
   
   Walmsley's book offers a concise, yet in-depth tutorial on the XQuery language specification. After digesting these 25 chapters you'll have the knowledge required to program using XQuery to read your XML data. Whether you're coming from a relational and SQL background or you're an XML and XSLT coder, this well-written text will help you understand and write queries using XQuery.



3. I needed to come up to speed with an XML database server (Mark Logic) and I found this book very useful for learning how to use XQuery. It was concise and provided many good examples. The presentation of chapters was somewhat episodic--you had to read the later chapters to find out how some of the topics turned out. This was probably due to the newness and complexity of the topic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a chapter reorg for the 2nd edition.
   
   In my case, the book covers only XQuery and does not cover the XQuery extensions and specifics of the XML database system I was using. Walmsley's book makes a great companion to the vendor documentation.



4. XQuery has its logical side, but it's pretty easy to forget all the syntax rules and nuances associated with it. Without this book, I'd easily be cursing XQuery and everything associated with it.
   
   It was a great read to get started, but it's become an indispensable reference for day-to-day work and play. With the 30 or so sticky-notes poking out the top, I find myself constantly in this book looking for not just answers, but ways to better use XQuery efficiently in a maintenance-friendly manner.



5. The problem of this book is it doesn't give detailed information on how to implement X-Query on your computer. When you have Windows Vista, eXist doesn't work. Neither does WAMP. And unless you have heavy duty experience with SQL Server, this book is useless. The author of this book needs to include many more simple examples so that people like me can use the language. I might figure out how to use this someday, but it will be a long time before I do. That is so disappointing.

5 comments about Access 2003 Programming by Example with VBA, XML, and ASP.

1. I am a old hand on Access programming.
   I use , design and program Access since office 97.
   After studying this book, I found out I just knew so little about Access.
   The content is pretty easy read and excellent examples.
   Every Access programmer need to have this book for their reference.



2. As programming books this one did actually have something I could use and gave an example of how to use it. It even gave the code.......what a thought. Most programming books offer little more than lots of pages of "stuff" you cannot use. The book took you through the process of how to code a "Message" box. This one actually did have a few things one could use. Not a good beginner book, intermediate to advanced. This book coded you through modules.....good idea. The one thing I didn't like about the book was it did not go deep enough into data base design or normalization.



3. All you can learn to a program MsAccess, as a reference book.



4. This is not the book for beginners. But this is the book for users who have a good foundation with the basics of Access- forms, reports, and queries- and want to learn how to use VBA to improve their database. I'm working on a project where I need to reprogram many aspects of the database, and this book has been invaluable. I have plenty of Access books for reference, but this book is the secret weapon for Access programmers.



5. A book about Access that tells about the different aspects of the software as this book does is worth having on the book shelve. I recommend this book to anyone who needs as I do to have an available book to give examples as well as explain the details and tell about each area of Access databases. It's not a exhaustic concordance of Access but it has enough info to allow one to build some sophisticated databases. Not exactly for the beginning Access programmer but for the intermediate and advance programmer it would be an asset. I want go into detail but you need to read through the pages to understand the valuable resource it is. If you need reference material this book is for you.