No comments about Tech Ed 2001: centrado en XML.(evento de la industria de aplicaciones; México)(TT: Tech Ed 2001: setting eyes on XML.)(TA: software industry exhibit; Mexico)(Artículo ... Breve): An article from: E Semanal.

No comments about NEW XML MIDDLEWARE PROVIDES INTERNET DB CONNECTIVITY.(XML Software's InterAccess 1.1)(Product Announcement): An article from: Computer Protocols.

No comments about XML Data Exchange Using ABAP.

No comments about XML Para Dummies.

No comments about Dynamically Creating and Validating XML for EAI and B2B Transactions.

5 comments about The XML Handbook (3rd Edition).

1. There are far better books, that cost less, are more concise and
   reveal a lot more about XML and the impact it is starting to have on
   society. If you are a programmer seeking a technical guide, this is
   not for you either.



2. The tutorials are very good although the book seems mostly to be a product review with the reviews written by the companys whose products they are.



3. ...at least that is what the publisher was trying to provide the companies...oops...I mean authors with.

   I don't mind the format except that it was written by the marketing departments, and not the people who actually do the work. As a technician I found it useless, insulting, and full of wishy-washy statements (no I can't give you examples because I threw the book away a long time ago). However, they are the kind of statements I'm constantly fighting over today (with our company's executives) like "seamless integration." What does that mean? To my company execs it means no more pain. No more money to be spent. We do XML right? Then why can't we import that document format today? What do you mean we can only handle certain XML standards - "the whole company thinks we do XML, and your telling me we don't!"

   This book is part of the "do XML B2B and get rich quick" fiasco of 2000.

   I like Charles Goldfarb, but he sold out to the wall street MBA types who have completely unrealistic expectations of what technology can and can not do.




4. A few years ago, I bought Dr Goldfarb's great "SGML Handbook". I thought "The XML Handbook" would be something similar.

   The book contains, roughly, 100 pages of introduction to XML; 250 pages of tutorials on XML and its subcultures; and almost 600 pages of corporate presentations, of varying quality, on various aspects of XML application and implementation.

   The introduction and tutorials, although good, didn't have the depth I was looking for.

   The corporate bit addresses a very broad range of interesting issues, with varying levels of detail, but never enough to "solve the problem".

   So for me, the signal-to-noise ratio was pretty low.

   Let me give an example of a major gap in the book's coverage: I had hoped to gain much more insight into the relative merits of using attributes as against using element content; but I finished the book no wiser than when I started (other than having seen some examples where I disagreed with the approach taken).

   The CD-ROMs didn't add much value, either: the web has moved on very rapidly.

   To add to my disappointment, the production of the book is not of a high standard.

   - The rendering of low-level headings leaves a lot to be desired (Ex: I looked at 33.2.2.6.4 on page 480 for fully 30 seconds before understanding that it was a heading). So does that of block quotes, which appear to run on to the following paragraph.

   - Many footnotes on a left-hand page with callouts on the previous page make reading a chore (Ex: fn #2 on pp 59 and 60). There is a general disdain for any attempt to keep figures on the same left-right page pair as their references.

   - It might have been less irritating, too, to use a single numbering space for all Figures, Examples, Tables, and Spec Excerpts, rather than obliging the reader to work out the sometimes subtle difference between "Example 8-1" and "Figure 8-1".

   This book, I understand from the Preface, was itself prepared using XML. Unfortunately, good markup for publishing is of little use without excellent rendering. I got a strong impression of unseemly haste to get the book out before getting the rendering up to scratch. So readability was badly crippled (unlike The SGML Handbook).

   One last damn. So far, I've read the book just once. Although I'm kind to books, the cover is already dog-eared and de-laminating. It probably doesn't matter, because, in contrast to "The SGML Handbook", reading this book a second time won't add anything. That's another reason I think it wrong to call it a Handbook.

   More in sorrow than in anger, then: two stars for Dr. Goldfarb, zero for Prentice-Hall.




5. ectetera: creando la necesidad
   XML: proponiendo un plan
   este y otros libros: creando la coyuntura
   Nosotros: los gilipollas

2 comments about XML Publishing with AxKit.

1. Suppose you have a bunch of XML data. You want to offer it up on the web and your web server happens to be the most common one, Apache. Perhaps, as Hampton points out, you want to make the data available in various transformed ways - HTML, PDF or RTF, say, as these are very common formats. Each format needs a different operator to generate its output from your XML. Well, you may be in luck. Hampton suggests adopted AxKit as a way to do all this, fully compatible with Apache.

   Along the way, he offers concise ways to use XSLT, XSP, RSS and stylesheets. In other words, he gives a motivating context in which to quickly learn the rudiments of these packages. Certainly not comprehensive in each. But this can be a blessing in disguise. For example, the full expressive power of XSLT grammar can be rather daunting to master. So his book also practises an informal but useful subtheme. He gives you a pragmatic minimum acquaintance with various subsidiary packages that are not AxKit itself. A useful extra benefit of the book.




2. XML seems to be on the mind of just about everyone who publishes information to the Internet. The big advantage is the ability to take content and publish it in various formats from a single source. As a general rule when you are talking about XML you are talking about using Java to implement it. AxKit gives the user the ability to publish XML documents using Perl. That means that you will have to have Perl installed to use it. Basically the prerequisites are an Apache server, the mod_perl Apache extension module, an XML parser written in Perl or in C with a Perl interface module, and the AxKit distribution. One you have all that put together and functioning you can start using the book to learn how to publish XML documents with AxKit. The actual techniques in the book are straightforward and well explained. If you are familiar with Perl there is nothing complex here, just a few different things to learn but nothing bizarre. With plenty of sample scripts so you can follow along and write your own following the examples XML Publishing with AxKit is a recommended read for people who are very familiar with Perl and want to get up and running with XML publishing with the minimum of effort.

No comments about XML Vendors brawl over standards.(Technology Information): An article from: Computer User.

No comments about Database and XML Technologies: First International XML Database Symposium, XSYM 2003, Berlin, Germany, September 8, 2003, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

No comments about DataPower and Contivo offer complete standards-based XML integration solution.: An article from: EDP Weekly's IT Monitor.