5 comments about Java XML and Web Services Bible.

1. I bought this book for its sections on XML-RPC, SOAP and such. It had no in-depth coverage of these topics, but the overview wasn't too bad. However, the editing is bad, so you have contradictory sentences, even on the same page. Also the examples have lots of problems. If you want to use this book to get some overview, it's ok, but don't rely on it as the final word.



2. Making a claim to be the Java, XML, and Web Services Bible is a big one, and one that this book fails to deliver on. While the author clearly knows the subject matter, his coverage of the basics is sometimes terse and confusing. I have some familiarity with xml, but the author takes just over 200 pages covering xml, xsl with Xalan, and xslt. Considering the scope of the subject, the author would have been better served to split this book into 3 or 4 volumes and cover the material more in depth in each volume. As it stands, the book lightly covers the basics then moves into more advanced examples, giving a feeling of being rushed through the material.
   However rushed the book may feel, it is organized in a logical manner from start to finish. Although there is a slight detour in the middle of the book to cover the fairly new SVG, each section of the book builds upon the preceding sections. But I found that at the end of sections that I wasn't familiar with already, I felt lost because I hadn't been adequately prepared.
   I was dissappointed with the sample code also. The code was written using software from the Apache Project, which was fine, but like most software books, the code was outdated before it was published. While the code was written using older versions of Xalan, Cocoon, and others, I also found that many of the samples didn't work. The sourcecode is downloadable from the publisher's site (no cd), but there are no compiled versions of the samples. There is supposedly an updated version of the sample code in a zip file, but that turned out to be fairly buggy as well.
   If any of these technologies is new to you, I suggest you spend more money on other books because this one will only confuse you. If you are familiar with most of what's in here already and need an all-in-one reference or refresher without spending a lot of money, this would be the book for you.



3. This book is full of good information about XML and Java, and almost any developer using XML for the first time would find it useful. However, I think it is a little out of date. A lot of the "extension" packages it talks about have actually been encorportated into the Java platform in one way or another, and there are a few new XML-Java initiatives that it does not cover. Also, some of the examples in the book are a bit contrived, and not very practical for real world applications. But on the whole, I think this is a very good introduction to the subject.



4. The book isn't really for beginners. I don't think Java beginners can make sense of the Reflection or servlet code. The XML/XSLT part is hard to follow even after you've already read other books on the subject. The site [url] doesn't seem to exist (I tried on Oct 12 and Oct 13, 2002), so there's no source code available to download. If you're serious about Web Services I recommend you look at Jesse Liberty's books on C# and .Net instead.



5. I bought this book based on the 4.5 stars that the original reviews had given it. It must have the author's friends. None of the examples work and could never work no matter what platform. It is obvious that the author never actually worked through these issues although it looks good enough that it faked me out. Examples: he uses virtual base classes as if they were implementation classes (DOMImplementation class), he uses methods that dont exist (System.out.null()), he fails to declare or instantiate items that he uses in the examples, ..., ..., ... It took me a month to work my own way through the 2nd chapter. Not worth the time, not worth the money.

No comments about XML Schema Essentials.

5 comments about XML Databases and the Semantic Web.

1. If you know anything at all about XML and the semantic web - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK. This book covers nothing in depth. I just spent 3 nights reading this book - waiting for something to happen - it never does. The author does not go into any decent technical detail on anything. If you have ever worked with XML and want to learn something about RDF etc... this is not the book for you.



2. This books covers a lot of topics very well. It starts with a discussion of web databases and semi-structured databases and then goes on to discuss XML, RDF and finally ties all the concepts together in a discussion of the semantic web. Semantic web is still evolving and the author clairifies the various concepts quite well. While this may not be at the right level for a technologist or a developer, this book will be quite appropriate for a manager or executive who wants to get a quick introduction to the semantic web and XML.



3. This books covers a lot of topics very well. It starts with a discussion of web databases and semi-structured databases and then goes on to discuss XML, RDF and finally ties all the concepts together in a discussion of the semantic web. Semantic web is still evolving and the author clairifies the various concepts quite well. While this may not be at the right level for a technologist or a developer, this book will be quite appropriate for a manager or executive who wants to get q quick introduction to the semantic web and XML.



4. I am new to the field of web and databases and found this to be an excellent book. It is very well written and very easy to read. It does not hype up the area like some other books do and provides a very realistic picture. I am now eager to learn more about the field.



5. The author provides broad overview of the semantic web and XML. It gives a beginner some insights into the field. It does not go into depth on XML, but gives several references for the reader to find more information. It also takes a database perspective in discussing the semantic web rather than an artificial intelligence perspective. I find this aspect very interesting.

5 comments about XML Web Services for ASP.NET.

1. I have purchased three books on XML Web services and this one was the most comprehensive and got right to the point on how to not only build webservices, but also to how consume them in my applications (.NET, VB and classic asp). It is interesting that this is such a talked about topic everywhere, but there are not too many books out on this subject. You won't do yourself wrong by getting this book.



2. Excellent book on webservices. Chapter 23 was something I had never seen before. WSDL is used extensively in the book, and Chapter 23 shows how to build take a standard HTML page and turn it into a WSDL document. What does this get you? Now you can screen scrape HTML pages and access the data as a property of the WSDL Document. I had never seen this before. Totally cool and unique technique!!



3. When I purchased this book, hope will find examples, information about Web Services to help my projects. But I only found identical MSDN information. I could not believe my eyes but several of sentences was same with MSDN. If you want to buy a Web Services book this should not be one. I have purchased several books on XML Web services and this one was the most identical (also just copy and paste) one.



4. I was studying for the Microsoft exam 70-310 on XML Web Services and they suggested this MS press book on web services, but the MS press book is ONLY in C# even though the exam they want you to take is for Web services in VB.NET! Had to return that book. I got this one instead. I was happy to see that this book covered XML Web services in both VB.NET and C# and I was able to use this book to study for my exam. Passed!



5. Any book on ASP.NET will mention Web services development, but "XML Web Services for ASP.NET" is an entire book dedicated to explaining all of the different sub-areas within the technology platform. And very well done. It's written by everyone's friend in .NET, Bill Evjen, one of the most outspoken advocates of .NET technology around.

   The book is outstanding and takes an in-depth look at XML Web services, and Microsoft's specific implementation of the paradigm. All of the major considerations are explained well and adequately to become productive in developing your own library of Web services, or by extending the functionality of your applications.

   The book's tone is very friendly, and non-intimidating, so it's a very easy, quick read. Bill also uses lots of practical analogies to make the more complex topics relevant, so it's an added bonus that this book appeals to the beginning as well as the seasoned developer.

   Bill discusses areas critical to a thorough understanding of WS technology using .NET such as SOAP, UDDI, remoting, security, authentication, performance, and client development for calling an XML Web service from an ASP.NET WebForm or Windows Form, VB 6.0 app, or an ASP 3.0 Web page. The book also features some really good appendices, especially those on .NET's Web service classes, and an XSD primer for schema development.

   The book is not about ASP.NET development, and so providing the reader has some experience with building third-generation Web applications, gets right to the meaty stuff. The chapters are short and to the point, and Bill's overview of ADO.NET is one of the better ones I've read in recent times. The most outstanding thing to me is that Bill liberally uses real-world code samples, with all code presented in both Visual Basic .NET and C#. Snafus in the code are very minimal, and I know form personal experience that good ol' Bill is extremely available and answers all his e-mail...about anything.

   However, the book's printed code samples (I haven't checked the downloadable source code from the publisher) tend to reflect code generated from Visual Studio .NET, which in my opinion become confusing and therefore more difficult to replicate in an IDE environment like Dreamweaver MX or ASP.NET Web Matrix or non-IDE environment like Notepad due to all of the proprietary code VS.NET generates, and in doing so, using code behind. It's been my experience that it's easier to go the other way - provide the raw code and leave it up to the developer to implement in whatever means they see fit.

   Another thing I did not care for (some of you may agree, I'm assuming most may not) was the physiology of the book itself, which was beyond the author's reasonable control. The binding is very flimsy and the spine breaks without much trouble. The paper isn't very durable, and doesn't lay flat for very long. I hope Wiley Publishing take into consideration that books of this nature get used & abused for their content more than most, and consider making corrections in the book's composition to make them last longer.

   But beyond this, the book is a must-have for a user group as it's cross-language, multi-developmental platform, multi-subject appeal make it applicable to many different levels of developers, and is great for team environments.

5 comments about XML and PHP (Landmark).

1. I decided to purchase both Wrox's Professional PHP4 XML and New Rider's XML and PHP. Now, I'm not a dumb guy. I've been programming for awhile, but I'm still learning all the time. I like to build object oriented code in PHP as I believe it's the best way to go for several tasks (although not all). I'm still learning how to apply design patterns and the like and I find that very interesting. So when I pick up a book, I really want to see an author care about objects rather than putting all his code in the toilet - That's what this book does.

   Even further, the examples are so basic and the chapters don't explain anything beyond those examples either. I'm surprised people found this book useful since everything is obvious that those university computer science monkeys who are still learning Windows can figure this book out.

   But where are the best practices? Where are the examples used within an object oriented architecture? Do you think we are idiot programmers who only know how to code procedural programs that all reside within a single server page. Get real.

   On the other hand, I was very impressed with the Wrox book. Although some of the intro chapters were fairly useless (since they covered intro to PHP concepts and so forth), the chapters talking about SAX, DOM, XSLT and XML-RPC are much better and totally outshine this book's counterparts. They even discuss Object oriented programs in all most cases and will provide you both versions a lot of the time! Even further, the Wrox book shows you various examples about solving common problems. I actually think the authors showed me all the potential problems you can have for that matter; they were pretty detailed, especially in the SAX and XSLT chapters.

   After reading some of the reviews about XML and PHP, such as "This book doesn't suck" or Manual Lemos's review (a guy who contributes a lot of PHP code to the community) stating "this book was the best on PHP and XML available", it's obvious that they have ties to the author and want to see him succeed. Don't let them pull you in - this book isn't even worth the sympathy.

   Xi Chi's review was right on the bull's eye. I should have listened to it and so should you. Avoid this book like the plague and get Wrox's PHP4 XML book instead.




2. Vikram Vaswani wrote a very focused book, covering every aspect of PHP and XML integration, with dedicated chapters on SAX and DOM parsers, XSL, WDDX, XML-RPC and SOAP. I think that PHP 4 is still lacking in the area of XML integration, but intermediate and advanced developers can still perform a lot of tasks using this combo. The book is clearly written; it covers a lot of different extensions and third party libraries with full code listings



3. Chapters two and three start the book with good examples of SAX and DOM use in PHP respectively. This provides a solid foundation for the rest of the book which shows examples of popular XML based technologies as applied to PHP. These include XSLT (Sablotron), XML-RPC, SOAP, XML in databases and other topics. Each of these discussions contains some real world examples to provide context.

   It's a short and concise book that is well written. The use of graphics could be more effective. For example the screenshot in figure 6.8 is a single line in a vast sea of whtie browser space. The code sample could use some annotation or at the very least some bolding to hi-light the important segments.

   The value of this book will depend on the degree to which you use XML in the PHP context. If you want a quick booster rocket to get you into SAX or DOM work within PHP this book will do the trick since it's far better than the documentation on the PHP site.




4. I've been reading this book recently (6/11/2004). With regards to DOM and XML, it's very out of date given the current development of PHP. Would advise newer, more up to date book if you're interested in DOM and XML.



5. I've been reading the book, and had a feeling it explained a lot.
   Finally, i could use it, but the code used is very outdated (01-2005). That's why i visited their website.
   as the book refers to the site often.
   http://www.xmlphp.com/
   check it yourself, no updates, the forum is closed.
   why did i buy this book?

5 comments about Programming Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 with XML, Second Edition.

1. Although this book didn't go quite as in depth as I would have liked it to, it was well layed out and had a lot of practical examples. Everything in it was easy to follow and focused on making the technology work instead of delving into the techie jargon about the theory behind it. This book won't make you an expert, but will give you enough to be able to start plugging this stuff into your projects pretty quickly.



2. I never expected so much useful information into such a small book. Good books don't sell by weight or page count.
   I found this book concise and clear (this man knows how to teach). It sure doesn't explain everything about the subject, but it gives the big picture, with an impressive number of details too.
   Ideal to start working in small time.
   NOTE about who is this book for:
   As title state, this book teaches how to use the XML features of SQL Server 2000, not how to use SQL2000, so if you don't know SQL Server you better read something else first.
   From the XML XSL XPath X... side, this book is also for novices as it has a very good appendix that teaches all you need to understand the book.



3. Most of the reviews here seem to relate to the first edition (which was admittedly kind of short). The book has been updated, and the second edition covers new stuff like XSD Schemas, Diffgrams, SOAP Virtual Names, and all the other SQLXML 3.0 features. I found the book really useful, and easy to read. The examples are great and the concepts are all well explained. Definitely worth buying if you're planning to use SQL Server's XML functionality.



4. This is a great book for a beginner of SQL Server 2000 and XML. Starts off from scratch and walks you thru every aspect of XML and building a complete XML enabled web pages.

   This is a good book for any one that is looking to find over all information that can give glimpse into the features of SQL Server and be able to utilize to build XML-enabled data-pages.




5. The book reached me in a near perfect condition and in right time.
   
   Thanks guys!

5 comments about XML: Your Visual Blueprint for Building Expert Web Pages (With CD-ROM).

1. This is one of the best books on XML. I bought the book 5 months ago with zero knowledge on XML, now, I'm an XML wizzard, got a raise of 7,000 over the last 3 months for my expertise with XML. This is a all-in-one XML book. It tells you step by step about XML, and it's all XML beginners need. A second best book on XML would be XML Bible, which is 1,300 pages. Would recommend reading the visual book first, then proceed to XML Bible to do some fancy stuff.



2. I'm new to XML. My knowledge is fairly limited. And yet in the first 70 pages, I found at least 7 errors. (And bear in mind, each two pages presents one concept; therefore that averages out to one error per new idea.) Some were "screen typos," as in, the text would say "Type a question mark," but the little line to the screen image points to an asterisk. Other times, though, the information is flat-out wrong.

   I'd hate to think what would have happened if I new nothing at all about XML, and just accepted these mistakes as gospel.

   Suffice to say, I'm going to try to get my money back for this book.




3. As with all of the visual blueprint book, this is a good reference for those new to XML. I found it easy to reference with. However if you need more explanation, then pick Microsoft step by step or SAMS 24 hours book.



4. Horrible book out there for learning XML. Lack of imagination on the part of the authors leads to same, mind-numbing, utterly useless example being used throughout the book.

   Can use the book for a quick glance at the XML syntax though, but don't expect to learn anything from the book.

   No wonder the book sells for less than $2, and is worth only that much.




5. I borrowed this book from my new team lead, since he wants me to do some XML work on his project. I have absolutely zero experience with XML (or HTML), and I saw this book on his shelf so I borrowed it, hoping it would give me a clue as to what I'm supposed to do for the next few weeks. I am shocked at how little I know after completing the first two chapters! Each two pages is a new concept - which I think is a great idea. But, after you follow along with the examples, there is no description/pic of how it should look in your web browser! How do I know if I'm doing it correctly if I don't have anything to verify it with? It's kind of like reading a programming book that never shows you what the execution of the program is supposed to look like - that's ridiculous! Also, the lessons explain the "what" to do, but not the "why," which is really frustrating when you're trying to REALLY learn something - not just fake your way through it. Stay away from this book. I bet there is a free tutorial on the web that is much better.

5 comments about Beginning C# XML: Essential XML Skills for C# Programmers.

1. ALOT examples are missing in this book OR don't work, but this book is defineltly NOT good enough to get you started.

   The merits of the book is a good intro to new technology when working with .net but what is the good if the code don't work
   as in this book

   there is missing code in chapter1 adding a recordset to xmlfile
   chapter3 code in p118 and 119 don't work
   Chapter 8 discusses xslt isn a very poor manner, in addition to all the missing xslt files and the non working application
   in the download section.

   At this point I cannot continue reviewing this book, there are
   too many fundamental flaws in code and I don't know where to begin

   As usual I have resorted to wrox support and again there is no comment to no surprise.

   As a veteran of xml and xslt for the last 4 yrs, if you want
   a book with alot of questions and NO answers this is the book for you.

   until the code is this book is revised by the authors or WROX
   this book is a death sentence to ALL who want to know about xml
   and xslt in the .net world

   The validity of the review is only good if the programmer
   actually tries to run the code and not just say it that
   it works.

   Lets see if wiley can get these missing examples up and running for us




2. I really enjoyed this book and didn't find ANY problems with the code as the reviewer below stated - maybe he was doing something wrong.

   Wrox support wasn't very good but i didn't need it much.

   Some examples are complex, but then some of the topics are pretty complex and it does a good job of explaining them - will help if you have a larger pure XML reference book too!!




3. This is not an easy book to read. The first 3 chapters are very heavy going with little in the way of productive examples. I was looking for a book that gave me the basics of XML with C#. I was not looking for a book that spent the first 3 chapters covering the basics of XML on its own.

   Having said that, I think the authors do a fairly good job of covering the material that they are attempting to do. This is definitely an introduction to XML, though, and there are a lot of unanswered detail questions that you will obviously need to research in other books.

   There are several mistakes in the quoted code, and the fact that the WROX site is no longer available makes this a tough book to work through. Fortunately my C# is good enough to spot most of the syntactical errors, but I pity someone who is new to C# too.

   In a nutshell, this book is okay, but you're going to need a lot more than this to really get to grips with the stuff.

   I'm going to look at a couple of the O'Reilly books...




4. I bought this book as an introductory text to teach myself XML with C#. The book gives me that, but it could have been done far better. I am left with the overall impression that this was either a first time effort for the authors, or that the book was rushed to make a deadline and not enough editorial review and proof-reading took place (I suspect both).

   Simple things like the illogical order in which topics are presented throughout each chapter, misleading diagrams, unclear or just plain bad use of grammar, inadequate use of examples in the early chapters, some VB code snippets (it's supposed to be a C# book) are all simple mistakes that could have been eliminated at editorial stage, and which, had this been done, would have made for a far better reader experience.

   This book does it's job, but I am sure there are better texts out there.




5. This is a code snippet from the book on page 25 (first code sample in the book):
   DataTable objTable = new DataTable();
   DataRow objNewRow;
   objDataSet.WriteXML( "C:\\AddXML\\Contacts2.xml" );
   DataSet objDataSet2 = new DataSet();
   objDataSet2.ReadXML( "C:\\AddXML\\Contacts2.xml" );
   dataGrid1.DataSource = objDataSet2.Tables[0].DefaultView;

   Now, where exactly is the objNewRow used? Why declare it if you're not going to instantiate it or reference something with it?

   And that London guy found no flaws in the code? This is the first code example in the book, and already I can't figure out what they're trying to do. Also, this preceded that last snippet:
   string XmlFilename;
   XmlFilename = "C:\\AddXML\\contacts.xml";

   Okay... assuming that we're using Hungarian notation, which is what the author did in a rather odd way in the earlier example, why not just do this:
   string _strXmlFilename = @"C:\AddXML\contacts.xml";

   I used an underscore to denote that the variable is private. No matter.

   People code some strange stuff, in some strange ways. But Wrox just gets me. It seems like they were producing just total crap in the past couple of years. I bought this book because it was only 10 bucks at Borders, and I guess it's worth the 10 bucks in that it gives me sheer delight to know that these guys made so much more money than I ever will, and I still code better than them.

   -Ryan Cammer
   ryancammer@yahoo.com

1 comments about Information Architecture with XML: A Management Strategy.

1. This book offers a company a way to recast and re-implement a lot of its data handling. Surely an ambitious goal, and one that many might be reluctant to undertake. But the book strives to explain how a proper management level understanding of XML can enable these changes. It is not a book about the detailed syntax of XML and its associated standards. That is properly the remit of the programmers themselves, to understand and apply.
   
   Rather, the book aims at a higher level. Even if your current digital data takes on many disparate formats, you can use XML to implement a consistent metadata view. This is stored in XML and at the very least, lets you do rich searching through corporate data. Without necessarily changing any of the latter.
   
   The book discusses far more. But the above can be a conservative approach that lets you gather easy benefits from just a partial XML deployment. Just getting used to thinking about metadata can benefit you as a manager, by exposing new ways of thinking about your company's assets.

5 comments about SAMS Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours.

1. Oh dear I wish I'd read these reviews before I bought this book; somehow I had the impression that the SAMs books where good introductions to subject.

   Yes, there are typo's in the long sections of code that you have tp type in yourself - which is worrying.

   Worse than that there would appear to be some major details missing from this book. I am stuck on chapter 2 now (I'm not a complete dimwit) as there would appear to be a major differenc between running xml files on your hard drive and running them online. The examples I am working do work when I test them on my pc - but when I uploa them to the web - nothing. I cannot even find the vaguest mention of any software/activeX controls I may need to install on my server to get the damn stuff to work.

   Deeply infuriating - I'm going to take it back I think.




2. After having bought a few of the 24 hours books I have learnt they are not all equal. This one I have found mostly easy to read, despite others comments. There are a number of typos, even in the code, which does cause some headaches. But smart reading will notice them, the code is pretty much repeated with minor changes in every chapter.

   Probably the biggest problem I encountered was at first the book demonstrated a long and painful JavaScript way of making sure an XML file was loaded properly. I had to change this to accomodate a failure to retry rather than just fail first time. Thankfully my JavaScript knowledge is advanced, knowing some JavaScript is definitely needed with this book. Later in the book this is dropped as code but the easier option is never mentioned of using the simple line "DataSource.async = false". I found this myself on the net somewhere.

   SAMS have no downloads for this book. All code must be typed in yourself. Searching on the ISBN results in nothing. Searching on the title results in only finding the second edition. And the downloaded files for this obviously don't even come close to matching.




3. I just got this book because it met my need to learn XML. My review at the bookstore was confirmed as a purchase because the book seem easy to read and could get me through learning this application pretty smoothly. I've bought other Sam's Publishing Teach Yourself series and really enjoy them.

   However, when I got home, I needed the source code to do my exercises which the book advises they are available online at Sam's and also provided the author's email address. For the publishing company, they no longer support this book and source is not available. For the author, his mailbox is full and I am sitting here dreading having to type all that source code.

   So if you want it, good luck, but be aware of my own deliemma. If you've got it and have the source code, let me hear from you.




4. Great book and I too was looking for those listings.
   Found them on sams webpage. Search for the author (ashbacher), you'll find one reference (to this book and its listings in the download section).



5. I know everyone who has rated this book had mentioned the typos. But, isn't this a major problem? This is a teaching book. If the examples won't work without the reader having to edit the copy as they are trying to learn, it seems to defeat the purpose of book.

   Also, the exercises are a bit monotonous. How about some varied content with a wider range of examples. After a while, examples started bleeding together when I went back to review previous lessons.

   I've purchased Sam's books in the past and been pleased. However, this one I should have skipped.