3 comments about XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.

1. In order to fully appreciate this book you will need a good working knowledge of XML and associated W3G documents, and more than a casual exposure to knowledge management. The first four chapters are a blend of historical information about XTM (XML topic maps) and fundamental technical information that describes design rationale and components of XTM (which is a separate open source initiative that is based on the ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps standard).

   Chapters 5, 6 and 7 dive into the mechanics of XTM and knowledge management, and requires the prerequisite knowledge I cited above. This part of the book is not an easy read. This is not a reflection of the authors/editors ability to write as much as it is of the nature of the material. Knowledge management and development issues are given both wide and deep treatment in these chapters. Chapters 8 and 9 go deeper into the XML family as they relate to XTM (with an emphasis on XSLT), and address creating and maintaining sites that use XTM/XSLT as the core of a knowledge management strategy.

   Related topics are covered in Chapters 10 through 13, including open source tools, RDF (widely used as a mechanism for weblogs and blogs that are gaining popularity), and semantic networks (intelligent agent-based systems). The final two chapters tie together the preceding material with a chapter devoted to topic map fundamentals for knowledge representation and a chapter about topic maps in knowledge organizations.

   If you are interested in using an XML-like technology as the foundation of a knowledge management strategy, or are interested in learning about new directions in the integration of web technologies and knowledge management this book is ideal. For the technical reader the code examples, pointers to open source and commercial solutions and the website that supports this book (using topic maps, of course), this book is an excellent way to leverage knowledge of XML and use it to develop knowledge management solutions.




2. Since Tim Berners-Lee wrote of the Semantic Web
   several years ago, there has been speculation about
   how we might embed meaning within Web pages, as
   opposed to merely displaying content. To answer this,
   XML offers the separation of content from display.
   From its user definable tags, different user
   communities can define their own sets of tags and
   associate meaning with those. XML offers the
   infrastructure. But it is still fairly low level.
   Assembler language, as it were, compared to more
   powerful languages like C or Java.

   So if XML is like an assembler, what is the analog of
   C? This book puts forward XTM, XML Topic Maps, as the
   answer. It consists of 17 chapters by different
   authors, outlining various aspects of XTM. The
   chapters can be divided into two types.

   One type has nitty gritty explanations, replete with
   examples of XTM written in XML. If you are a
   programmer, these chapters are for you. There are web
   sites listed with XTM definitions that you can

   incorporate into your XTM, just like using standard
   namespaces available on the web in normal XML.

   The other chapters deal with the much deeper and
   harder problem of how XTM may be used for Knowledge
   Organisation and Knowledge Representation. They are
   high level and abstruse, edging up to the issues of
   semiotics and artificial intelligence.

   As a side note: In the XTM examples and
   implementations given, I was surprised to see no
   mention of altavista's graphical representation of

   search results, circa 1998. This was not in XTM, but
   it conveyed the flavour. What happened was that if you
   searched for, say, 'tornado', the results would appear
   as a graph. The nodes would be the main keywords in
   the documents containing 'tornado'. Nodes would be
   connected to each other if documents contained both
   those words. In this case, one might see two non
   intersecting clusters - one related to weather
   patterns, and the other to jet planes. By clicking on
   a node, you could expand it into finer grained graphs.
   It complements this book, whose main thrust is in
   manually describing XML documents in an XTM format,
   because it could achieve much the same visual results,
   but derived automatically from arbitrary web pages.




3. This book is a must for anyone interested in Topic Maps. It would certainly pay to have some familiarity with XML, URIs, etc, because otherwise the examples will be hard going. If you do know XML, then you'll be away, because XTM is a very small and simple vocabulary.
   
   Each chapter is by a different author, and each one comes at the subject from a different angle. Topics covered include tutorials for using the XTM specification, topic maps for website Information Architecture, Knowledge Representation, Ontological Engineering, e-learning, visualisation, relationship to RDF, information about various software implementations (a bit dated now, but still valuable), as well as sample topic maps and XSLT code.
   
   Because of the diverse - even contradictory - viewpoints, the book as a whole provides an excellent overview of the field.

5 comments about Visual Basic(R) .NET Developer's Guide to ASP .NET, XML and ADO.NET (White Book).

1. This book is good for beginners and mid level .NET developers; it can also be used as a reference, too. It is concise and it contains complete examples (hello W...). The author does not assume that you have VS.NET, which can be a plus for some.

   I have other books written by Jeffery McManus. This book is just as good. I would like to see more books written by this author but on the advance side, for those who mainly use VS.NET as their development environment.




2. This book is very easy to read, and the examples in the book are all easy to follow. It provides enough information for people who are new to .NET and those who need a reference tool. The book has a good background on Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, XML, and ADO.NET. Very easy to understand.

   Chapter 2 provides good information for migrating from ASP to ASP.NET. It helps ASP 3.0 developers understand the differences between ASP 3.0 and ASP.NET and what needs to be changed. This book also discusses the general idea of Web Services, XML and ADO.NET with very simple examples. Having this makes it very helpful in understanding the corrolation of all the .NET features. You may want to pick up other books if you want to know more about these topics. I was able to use some of the examples in my development work, the examples are very nicely written and very well explained. This book, as is, can be a good tool for both learning .NET and used as a reference in future development work. I recommend the book. ---Reviewed by Annie W.




3. I would recommend this book for those VB/ASP developers who wish to get a basic guide to migrating to the new .NET technology. It does assume some previous knowledge of ASP development. It is useful as a handy reference for major features of .NET ASP development. I would not recommend it for those just getting started with ASP.NET.

   The book is well organized for the amount of subject matter covered. I found it somewhat daunting at first, since the author gets right into the new features of ASP.NET without a lot of background and foundation theory. Some may find this cutting to the chase as a feature, but the subject of migration is no small task.

   Going on to the page framework and configuration chapters, however provided a more rewarding journey. The book provides some basic knowledge needed for configuring and deploying an ASP application. This is an important topic that many books do not cover as thoroughly.

   The coverage of Web services is quite sufficient to get one started on their way to developing web service based applications. The code examples are well organized and easy to navigate and relate well to illustrate the text. The book is not, however a guide on style or technique - you'll need to develop that elsewhere.

   The sections on XML and ADO.NET are enough to get started with a good understanding of how these topics are so importantly tied into ASP.NET applications.

   Overall, the authors provide a great deal of detailed information without a lot of unnecessary verbiage. The book makes a reasonably good reference worth keeping at hand. -- Reviewed by Richard S.




4. As an experienced VB and ASP developer, I have spent the last year trying to make some progress in developing ASP.NET applications. 5-6 book purchases helped, but I never could really get the hang of it, until I got this book. After a very enjoyable time reading this book, and working through the examples, I am now going back through the other books, getting much more understanding from them.

   It's hard for me to say why this book proved to be so much more helpful, but it did. Jeffrey McManus is a good speaker and author, and this is the first book I've read from Chris Kinsman. Maybe it's their language that helped me, maybe it was the subjects they chose to spend time on, but one way or another, this book opened the floodgates for me.

   A couple of things I can definitely say that I found to be head and shoulders above other books are:

   1) Lack of errors/typos, etc. I'm not saying there aren't any, but this book definitely was not one of those that make it harder to learn simply because you think what you are reading is right, and it isn't. I had zero problems like that.

   2) Easy to follow code examples. So many books I've read make their examples too complex, expecting that you know everything that they are doing except for the one narrow thing they are trying to teach you. Like using regular expressions to validate email addresses before you save them to the database, and this in an example of "how to save to the database." This book has none of that junk. Each example cuts to the core of what it is trying to show you, and makes sure to explain it all, step by step.

   I can't wait for these guys to team up again.




5. Every now and then, a book comes along that I feel deserves 5 stars. This is one of those books. This book targets the intermediate Visual Basic.Net developer but someone trying to learn Visual Basic.Net, ASP.Net, ADO.Net, or XML will find that this book is easy to read. Chapters 1 through 10 cover ASP.Net, Chapter 11 covers XML, and Chapter 12 covers ADO.Net. At the end of several chapters, the authors provide a mini-reference. For example, at the end of chapter 11, there is a mini-reference on XML. I use these mini-references on a daily basis. In each chapter the authors have ample examples. The amazing thing is that they all work. I followed every example and with a minor exception of 1 example in the XML Chapter, all of the examples worked. The one exception just required some minor adjustments (using the XML indentation method). This is my first book by Jeffery P. McManus and Chris Kinsman but it won't be the last. I plan to buy their equivalent book on C#. I would also buy any "advanced" books that the authors write.

   Pros: Easy to read, ample examples that work, and mini-references at the end of the chapters.

   Cons: I would like to see more illustrations in the book.

   This book is definitely a "Buy".

4 comments about XQuery Kick Start.

1. This book is about best practices, patterns and anti-patterns, and about how to use XML and XQuery correctly and efficiently. It will be useful to a professional with any level of experience. It may be used as a tutorial and read from the cover to cover, or one can enjoy reading selected items, depending on the experience and taste. The book's very detailed index makes it an excellent reference on the subject as well.



2. Many of the books on XQuery tell you how XQuery was created but not how to use it. This one is different and will help you hit the ground running. I recommend buying this book.



3. These guys put together a wonderful book; I've find it an ideal guide to solving pitfalls using XQuery. Having this book on my desktop help me in preventing potential problems with my code and saving countless hours of time tracking down issues that aren't initially apparent.



4. I don't think I've read a computer book as poorly organized as this one. The basic premise seems to be present some random aspects of XQuery or related topics in a chapter and have no flow through the book.

   There is a lot of good material in the book but try to find it - it's more or less impossible because the index is abysmal. There's no real introduction to how to use XQuery - instead we start off with XSLT. That may be OK (they are related) but it seemed a bit strange to me.

   Another problem with the book is that some of it is out of date. The XQuery specification is a work in progress but the book was written after (and refers to) the final draft - but a lot of the examples are not compliant with that final draft.

   The best thing that I can say about this book is that it forced me to research issues more deeply and therefore find out what I needed to know. I wouldn't buy this book - try to borrow it and see if it meets your needs.

1 comments about Novell's Guide to DirXML.

1. This is an excellent DirXML for those that wishes to implement DirXML in their environment. It is meant to be an introductory book for the product and not an (very) in-depth look at each of the drivers (there are just too many, especially given the size of the book already!). Much of the customization each site needs is really doing XML coding, which is really beyond the scope of the book (and the product, really).

5 comments about XSLT: Working with XML and HTML.

1. I have been tinkering with XML in conjunction with Web Application Architecture over the past few years. This book has provided me with great examples of how to effectively implement XML solutions. In the very least, it has provided me great inspiration.

   However, the author's unrelated Zen like comments and quotes strewn throughout the book bothered me.




2. I felt frustrated after the first 100 pages. The writer completely lost me after I struggled thru from page 50 or so! He seemed more interested in starting off each chapter with quotes by Chuang Ji and I don't know how the words in the quotes related to the topic, though only the quotes seemed interesting than the presentation of XSLT by the author. The book started off nicely in simple English and things were placed in perspective. Examples of the various nodes were shown in diagrams too, but that alone spanned over 25 pages! Chapter 3 became an overview of the real world example of XSLT works, the Chapter 4 was what shredded me to pieces. From then on, the writer didn't seem interested in helping the reader understand XSLT in clear simple words, instead used cryptic language with jargon. Mr. Fung just failed to help readers to nail down the cryptic symbols in an otherwise easy XSL transformation process! Elizabeth Castro did a real wonderful job in her book on XML in explaining XSLT and XPath.



3. This is the most beginner-friendly book on XSLT I am aware of. It is written in simple language devoid of XML infamous dreadful terminology. It implies neither the reader's significant Computer Science background, nor outstanding brain power. Explanations are as clear and simple as possible, with lots of illustrations. 1-star reviewers remarks about "cryptic writing" and "higher algebra" are egregiously misaddressed (though entertaining :).



4. Uniquely efficient presentation of the topic. A necessary and sufficient description of the 20% of XSLT that is used in 80% of applications. Perfect use of extended graphics for the tree handling basics in Part II, which by itself justifies purchase. This is one of a handful of books I've run across in 20 years that takes the reader to an intermediate level in almost no time. (Frank Pagan's slim book on Formal Definition of Programming Languages is another.) Consensus among colleagues is that the Fung book for jump-start plus the Michael Kay (2nd ed) book for reference is the XSLT library to have. One wishes this author would write on other topics.



5. This book has nothing to ofer. If you need some pointers on creating XSL style sheets then keep looking. There is no one practical example even for basic stuff like using variable and parameters for sorting and filtering. Most examples are of the form:
   xsl:choose
   xsl:when test='expr1' something
   so if you whant to know how to build 'expr1' you need another book.
   After spending the money and time I had to go to the www.w3c.org site and obtain the information.

No comments about XML and Privacy: Mutually Exclusive? Presentation.

5 comments about XML Developer's Handbook (With CD-ROM).

1. The other day I came across "Enhancing XSL" article on MSDN written by the same author. The author did a great job. The article had good content and flow, and was easy to read. That encouraged me to buy his book.

   I am equally impressed with his book. It covers quite a bit of XML technology. It has good flow and is easy to read. It has plenty of examples. Thank God, it does not give any coverage to DTDs, like quite a few other XML books in the market. It is pretty much up to date with the XML specs when it comes to XPath, XSL, and Microsoft's XML Parsers. It gives good comparison of the differences in some recent versions of the MSXML. Now the reason I gave four stars is due to the lack of coverage for (a) SAX, and (b) W3C XML Schema.




2. I've always enjoyed Kurt Cagle's writing, from MSDN to vbxml.com, and this book was no exception. However, I was disappointed with the number of typos, some of which caused some confusion. For example, the text may read, "See Listing 3.9 for sample code using the element() property," but Listing 3.9 doesn't use the element() property anywhere! Overall, I like the book, and I'm glad I bought it. You'll definitely learn from it. I just hope they come out with a revision that fixes all the typos.



3. This is conceptually a very well done book. I like smallstand-alone code examples that can be entered into VB (or copied fromthe accompaning CD) and then run without having to code up and thenunderstand a large working program example. Unfortunately, as a ...the code samples are fraught with typo's and what appear to be codingerrors that cause VB 6 to choke. Examples are: Using CreateObject toinstantiate an instance of the DOMDocument requires that a variable oftype Object be used but the exmamples in the book use theDOMDocument. VB 6 doesn't like that. Also the error handling checksfor values > 0 but the ParseError returns large negative numbers soa greater than 0 test doesn't trap the error. as for typos: avar isnamed to be "errormsg" but the code example tries to set avar named "ErrorMsg" which of course doesn't work. I findthis ... editing on the behalf of the author and/or the publisher fora .... The problems are all easy to find and correct unless you're areal beginner to VB but annoying just the same. I still recommend thebook for its content ignoring the typos and language syntax bugs asmere inconveniences. For the VB 6 developer, I think this the bestbook going. Far better than what WROX provides i.e. Professional VB 6XML. If you can wade thru the typo's, syntax problems. As an aside, Iwent to the... site for this book and checked the errata hoping tofind a a downloadable file with corrected code examples.. It says noerrors have been identified with this book so I guess I will submit afew. ....



4. This book is the definitive source for XML (and related technologies) for the vb programmer.
   The only drawback are the typos in the listings on papers.
   The author has profund knowledge of the things he's talking about, and he knows how to transmit them.



5. This book was difficult for me to rate. While it had some very strong qualities, it was weak in other areas. The book surpassed many others in the following respects.

   1) Content - This book is one of the most advanced XML books I have ever seen. The author promotes the use of XML/XSLT as a programming language. The book's examples demonstrate how XML can be used to create platform/language independent applications.

   2) Scope - The book is complete in its coverage of XML. The topics covered include; The DOM, the MSXML parser, XML, XSLT, XPATH, XML schema, XML Programming with parameters.

   3) Length - The book is very concise and doesn't redundantly elaborate the obvious.

   The book needs improvement in the following areas.

   1) Difficult to understand - The book would introduce a new topic in a single page and then proceed to advanced examples. This book is for experts only. Unless you develop XML applications on a regular basis, this book will probably be extremely confusing.

   2) Out of date - Although this book was only published a little more than a year ago, it is already out of date. The standards were finalized in 2001 and most XML books will probably be dated. The information covering the schema is slightly out of date and the MSXML parser information is extremely dated.

   3) Inconsistency - The examples were not written to one standard. The Schemas and MSXML code examples are extremely varied and alternate between chapters. Unfortunately, the standards were fluid during the writing of this book.

   The overall rating will vary depending on the reader. Advanced readers will probably view this book as having four stars, while beginners will see it as a two star book. Given the balance between pros and cons, I give this book three stars.

1 comments about Mapping XML to C# Objects Using Reflection.

1. This is a fine article/case study but the code is not available online anymore.

5 comments about Domino 5 Web Programming with XML, Java, and JavaScript.

1. This is the book that let me keep reading all the times. As a As400 RPG programmer and Notes Developer, I like to know what Domino/Notes can do and looking for the way of directions and the key elements to bring back-end database to the Internet thru Domino. I like this book because it gives me the directions and shows me the ways to apply Java,JavaScript and Servlet to the Domino Server either from inside Domino Agents or outside Domino.Especially, the topics for Notes Java classes really shows me the way to java coding in Notes Agents. Though it is not complete to cover all these area, it is definitely a excelent book to keep.The writing is good and author always get to the point right away for each topic. Maybe it is a waste of money for people who knows all these topics already but it is certainly a key door to the people like me who has been wondering how to get to these area for years. After reading all of it, I definitely know where to go and how to do to be a cutting edge programmer.



2. At page 682 of 836 Tamura introduces Chapter 22 with the phrase "What is XML?". At page 808 Chapter 27 begins with "What is a servlet?". Introducing fundamental terms of web technology near the end of the book should make it obvious that something with the concept of this book went fundamentally wrong. From a modern book on Domino Web programming I'd expect some information about how to implement a multitier architecture, scalability,maintainability , perfomance and security etc... You won't find anything useful about these things in the whole book. So what does Tamura consider important then? The book is a collection of reference sections, e.g. Notes Design elements (Chapter 2 to 6) found in numerous other books including the Designer online help in better quality. It is especially annoying, though, that he also explaines design elements that can be used in the notes client only but not in a webclient (e.g. layout regions). So why mention it at all here? It looks to me as if large amounts of this book have been inserted via copy and paste from other resources and other contexts. The html/Javascript reference sections do not contain any Domino specific information and can be found in other books in much better quality as well. The examples given (checking for blank fields etc)are extremely trivial and of no practical use. On the other hand Tamura dosnt tell the reader how to implement a nice looking navigation with DHTML views but only shows the ugly domino standard views and the performance critical view applet. XML: Tamura doesn't even mention the SAX or other modern APIs like JDOM. He just keeps talking about the rather old fasihioned DOM API. This is the worst book on domino development I've read so far and what makes it especially annoying from my point of view is the little care and effort with which it has been written. I think it's getting time to stand up against the black sheep in the business and name them explicitely. Hopefully this will enable other authors of better quality bring their books to the market.



3. Don't waste your time or money with this book. I thought for sure with a title like this that it would skip all the what is Notes junk (like how to create views and forms, etc.) that all Notes books seem obligated to include. It is just a bunch of a filler in an otherwise useless book. I was looking forward to seeing some good JavaScript examples as it is used in common Notes situations. Well, no such luck. I struggled to find anything on something as basic and useful as the onChange event. This book is also not organized very well and is very confusing to learn follow. I am not sure the author has a good grasp of what he is writing. VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!!



4. I have read this book and found it useful. As a beginner on Domino Web Development this book has realy helped me in developing adequate skills in XML, Javascript and Java.



5. This was a highly anticipated book when it came out because it covered some very hot topics; namely XML and Java. The book probably didn't quite live up to expectations but still provided a load of useful information about those topics.
   
   Today you're probably better off with purchasing Lotus Notes and Domino 6 Programming Bible. Brian Benz and Rocky Oliver have done a great job with that book.

5 comments about Professional XML Web Services.

1. This is a pretty good anthology about web services, with a number of different topics covered in depth. I like that you can read just a chapter about a subject of interest without having to read the whole book up to that point. At 1000 pages, I wouldn't want to read the whole book from beginning to end anyway. However, it is uneven. There are some good chapters about SOAP, but other chapters, for example, UDDI, are not so good.



2. I would rather wait for the tech to mature for better quality books. I got lost and never proceeded to read after a few
   initial chapters. My advice to the authors would be to keep the readers interested and not throw him/her off course and lose interest totally in the subject.



3. This book is poorly written and organized. While a few chapters and topics are treated well enough most of the content is jumbled and confused and one wonders if the authors in some places actually understand their topics. There are too many good books such as the ORielly books or the Sams book on Web Services to even bother with this book. Skip it and spend your more money on another book.



4. I realise this book is now out of date, and therefore not relevant to much of what is happening in the Web Services world. However, when I first read it, it did help me get an understanding of some of the more important Web Services fundamentals. The tutorials on WSDL and SOAP especially were useful to me, as were the comparions of the various vendor toolkits that implemented SOAP messaging. There may be more current books out there, but if you can get a used or discounted copy of this title, it's still worth it.



5. Since Chris Dix works at navtrak and they have problems with web services working. They must be using only this book. Navtrak is the worst.