5 comments about Pro PHP XML and Web Services (Pro).

1. This book is amazingly well written. The content is organized in an intuitive and logical fashion. The author explains base concepts and progresses into advanced topics, providing consistent depth of coverage along the way. The author's writing and concise examples get the message across on the first reading - unlike some texts that require multiple passes. It's also noteworthy that the Technical Reviewers, Christian Stocker and Adam Trachtenberg, are renowned PHP experts and authors. If you plan to study or work with PHP and XML, this book is a MUST HAVE.



2. This is a great book in that the author provides comprehensive coverage of a complicated subject, and does it in clear, concise and understandable language. The book should be a promary resource for programmers. I look forward to more contributions from this author.



3. This is first and foremost an XML reference. The author takes the reader through over 100 pages XML background in the first three chapters, then an overview of a few utilities like XPath and XPointer before he touches on PHP. Having provided some grounding in the basics, he then proceeds to develop the use of XML in PHP from the basic topics of DOM (Document Object Model) and XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) to the more advanced topics of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and web services.
   
   Along the way Richards introduces the reader to utility classes like SimpleXML, SAX (Simple API for XML), XMLReader. He also touches on PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) utility classes and topics like security, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration). The author's examples are reasonably concise and readable; making the necessary points without getting carried away.
   
   The bottom line is that this is a highly effective reference (that means fairly comprehensive, but dry reading; I read cover to cover, but it was relatively tedious) on XML and its varied uses in association with PHP. This is not a book for the newcomer to programming, nor is it a cookbook for examples for the casual programmer/web developer, although the author does provide PEAR examples for connecting with major web services like Amazon, Google and Yahoo (among others). My suggestion for readers is to review what you need of the first 11-12 chapters to ensure a firm grounding in XML, and then hop to the chapters specific to the problem being faced.
   P-)



4. 'Pro PHP XML and Web Services' by Robert Richards is a great book to help you learn your way around these technologies. Packing in over 900+ pages, this book gives a broad overview of the subject matter which is outlined here:
   
   01. Introduction to XML and Web Services
   02. XML Structure
   03. Validation
   04. XPath, XPointer, XInclude
   05. PHP and XML
   06. Document Object Model
   07. SimpleXML
   08. Simple API for XML
   09. XMLReader
   10. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations
   11. Effective and Efficient Processing
   12. XML Security
   13. PEAR and XML
   14. Content Syndication: RSS and Atom
   15. Web Distributed Data Exchange
   16. XML-RPC
   17. Representational State Transfer
   18. SOAP
   19. Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)
   20. PEAR and Web Services
   21. Other XML Technologies and Extensions
   
   If you need a book that dives into the XML technology and doesn't look back, this is a nice pickup that gets the job done. Lots of other Apress books I feel are a bit too long, but this book at over 900 pages I have less complaints about. It's solidly written and a nice companion book to have on your bookshelf for anyone that programs with XML.
   
   **** RECOMMENDED



5. This particular book provides the reader with a comprehensive view of PHP development. I was pleased with the vast amount of topics covered. This book is a very useful tool for developers.

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.

1 comments about New Perspectives on XML, Second Edition, Comprehensive (New Pespectives).

1. To be fair, I am not a fan of the Thompson Course Technology books in general. But this is the first one that actually drove me to write a negative review to spare some innocent XML programmer-to-be the confusion this book will likely cause.
   
   Our local community college unfortunately requires this text (a fair percentage of the classes seem to use Course Technology books because of the pre-fab quizzes, Powerpoints, and online supplements available to the instructors who can't be bothered to make their own).
   
   The good: The Chapters are called "Tutorials" and in general, if you can read and copy the tutorials line for line, you will be able to get them to validate. However, you probably won't understand why in many cases.
   
   The ugly: Like most of the Course Technology textbooks I've seen, there are significant typos and the explanations are very poor and awkward. There is little or no rigor in defining terms, the author often uses a tangential example as an adequate explanation for the entire concept.
   
   Many explanations are as clear as mud. Case in point p. 199 (which is only partially understandable to me because I've taken a few computer classes (including C++ object oriented programming) and the concept of scope is familiar to me, even if the word is never mentioned here):
   
   "In XML Schema, any element or attribute that is declared globally has to be entered as a qualified name in the instance document. The reason is that global elements and attributes are added to the target namespace, while local objects are not. Local objects are interpreted based on the namespace affiliation of the object in which they're nested. Because global objects are attached to the namespace, they have to be qualified in the instance document with a namespace prefix. The target namespace applies the document validation through the qualified elements in the instance document using them as the starting points for the validation process. You can't go down the hierarchy and validate only the local elements and attributes."
   
   And that was a relatively clear passage. Even if you understand the concept, you are unlikely to get the syntax exactly correct. This book has singlehandedly caused me to consider a campaign to our department dean to stop using Course Technology books, and search for a decent textbook substitute. This book is of little use in class, and will be even less useful as a handy reference.

5 comments about Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom.

1. O'Reilly's other book on RSS related technologies, Practical RDF, was not very practical at all. This book, on the other hand, addresses a variety of real feed production and consumption topics in a set of language. You will learn the feed standards. But you will learn them through application, not abstraction. And I find that much more effective than a book that presents technologies at the standards level (most of which you never use anyway). Then leaves you hanging.



2. This book has some great info on RSS and Atom, although not as up to date as one might hope. This book, like the O'Reilly RSS book before it, has a good 1/2 of the book dedicated to PERL specific programming ideas.
   
   Since I don't program in PERL, and can't necessarily follow along, I would much rather have seen more conceptual discussion about RSS/Atom possibiliities than the specific (PERL only) few examples.
   
   Comments for instance - RSS has a tag, but the book doesn't go into depth at all on how to use it. As a webmaster of several blogs, I'd like to know more about the "right" way to do comments - is it as a separate feed? Can I put them inline? How do other people do it? What's the benefits one way or the other?
   
   Overall, a good book, don't get me wrong. I'd just hoped for something a bit different, and hopefully that'll come soon.



3. This book has some good resource citings, and general information on RSS. It includes a lot of discussion on the previous iterations in the RSS geneology...up to the current RSS 2.0 specification.
   
   The index is not very thorough.
   
   I bought the book hoping to learn more about RSS feed development (as the title suggests). I was greatly disappointed. There is one chapter dedicated to RSS 2.0. Within the chapter there is a section entitled "Creating RSS 2.0 Feeds." This section--you would think is the core of the book-- is 8 pages long (if that) including 3 pages of Perl code examples.
   
   Good luck if you want to learn about creating Atom feeds from this publication. There is a 14 page chapter dedicated to Atom. It is prefaced with a disclaimer indicating that code in the chapter may fail due to version rot (and to surf the web for answers). Also in this chapter, there is a section entitled "Producing Atom Feeds." This consists of 2 brief paragraphs explaining how the current Atom version is not worth addressing and suggests purchasing the next edition of the book to find out how to produce feeds using up to date libraries!!!
   You can draw your own conclusions from all that.
   
   This book falls far short of the quality O'Reilly books of yore.



4. Great intro to the history of RDF/RSS/Atom. Chapter 10 "Unconventional Feeds" will give you great ideas to create and manipulate feeds for yourself. Note that some content has been republished from "Content Syndication with RSS" (0596003838).



5. One of the very best O'Reilly books I've read in a long time, is Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom by Ben Hammersley. On 240 odd pages, the author introduces the reader to syndication, feeds, the RSS dialects, the Atom syndication format and discusses parsing of feeds and creating feeds. This he does concisely and to the point but with a sense of humor which I greatly enjoy.
   
   The only thing which might be expanded on in a second edition, would be how different RSS reader applications react to feed content. Never the less, I highly recommend this book to anybody wanting to get inside RSS feeds.

5 comments about Beginning Ajax with ASP.NET (Beginning).

1. This book feels like it was thrown together quickly to cash in on the Ajax craze. The various chapters don't really flow together that well. It seems like they were written independently and then they threw in "For more information on see chapter ". Some of the chapters were pretty good for getting started, like the stuff about XMLHttpRequest. But others lacked enough information to be useful on their own (like the one on XPATH and XSLT). The book may be useful to get a survey of a bunch of the technologies behind Ajax and how to use Asp.net, but I don't think this book will stand the test of time.



2. Not only have I learned lots of AJAX but also many other aspects of ASP.NET programming. This is a readable book unlike many tech books. Very well done with very good language.
   
   I say it is readable, but it has also served me well for reference back to various subjects around JavaScript and other ASP.NET aspects which I felt were well explained here.
   
   What I also like are the "Try it now" sections where you can get some immediate instruction in an instant. The website behind the book is also a good resource... with the code they talk to.
   
   The book is well structured and explains 200-300 level material in 100 level terms yet with a conciseness that eludes more authors. I mean to say that I see presentations constantly at local Users Groups that do the same - well done - but they go past the 2hr mark - where Wally can put the knowledge in your brain in a short short instead of a long wind.
   
   I mean lots of stuff you may not get in the 10000 page reference books which only skim the surface. This book gets to the nitty gritty and in a very well laid out way, easy to "get".
   
   "Get more Wally" is what I say!
   
   Dan



3. GREAT INTRODUCTION to implementing custom AJAX solutions.
   Starts with a detailed review of some of the technologies used in AJAX; CSS and Javascript in particular. The intro alone is likely to increase your coding efficiency for these technologies.
   
   The book then goes on to give the nuts and bolts for creating roll-your-own AJAX scripts that are not locked into a specific vendor tool. By understanding these basics you can realize what some of the vendors are providing in way of RAD tools. While the design tools offer a developer great productivity gains, old-school developers will appreciate knowing the under the hood mechanics.
   
   AWESOME.



4. Wrox continues to produce pragmatic books. This book is very traditional in its approach. It starts with a history of Ajax and goes quickly into describing how Ajax works (under the hood). I am a HUGE proponent of knowing how things work, even if there is a framework around it. As such, I really like this book's approach.
   
   Building on the foundation of the basics, the book describes the frameworks for implementing Ajax. It focuses (obviously) on the ASP.NET implementations called "Atlas" (now simply referred to as Asp.Net Ajax). The book does cover other frameworks as well.
   
   I recommend this book for learning about Ajax under the hood. It will be beneficial whether or not you work in .NET. The book is not very big and if you are looking for an understanding of the inner workings of client-side XML and JavaScript then this book is for you.



5. This book did just what I needed it to. It got me caught up on Ajax and ASP.Net using C#. I typically develop backoffice code and have not kept up on a lot of web development. This brought me up to speed and gave me some further references to check out.

5 comments about Java & XML for Dummies.

1. I have 18 years exp. with IBM BAL and I'm also doing some work with modern technologies. I have looked through many JAVA/XML books and this is definitely the best book for both beginners and advanced users. Author presents in good depth a vast array of present technology, samples are working like that!! It has helped me a lot to get a grip of advanced matter such as SAX, DOM, JDOM, schema, SOAP and so on... Some other nice features of this book is a good readable style and more than usual coverage of the main subject.
   I am grateful to the author for the enormous scope of what has been accomplished. And, of course, I'll try to follow the recommendation to buy another books by Barry Burd in two copies: one for my home, and another for my office.



2. If you're a Java developer looking to get up to speed on how XML/Java/XSLT/Web Services, and lots of other topics, then this book is a great place to start.

   The book doesn't pretend to (and says so) teach every topic it covers (XSL, for example is presented in context but not really taught -- that would take a MUCH bigger book). Still, with some familarity with the topics, the code presented is great. XML (part of the book's title) is covered quite nicely.

   It's assumed that you're somewhat familiar with Java.

   In my case, I needed to find some clear explanations of how to create an XML file and then read that XML file along with an XSL stylesheet (I was learning XSL using Java/XSLT by O'Reiley at the same time). Barry's JDOM chapter and the chapter on putting data on the Web solved both these issues.

   Don't get put off that this is a "Dummies" book. I have found it useful for at least two projects (the most recent I wrote about above).

   Also, when there was a minor problem with the code where IE 6 wouldn't recognize the stylesheet processing instruction when it was at the bottom of the XML file, the author was extremely helpful and responsive to this issue. He helped me research the problem and wrote me back with his findings.

   To put my review in perspective: I'm the kind of developer who likes to learn to walk before I learn to run. If you like to just jump into a complex book and wade your way though the material, then this book might not be for you. But, if you like to get a feeling for the technology and get relatively straightforward examples *working* first, then check out this book.

   Barry explains topics clearly and simply.

   All in all, I found this book to be completely refreshing compared to most of the books out there.




3. I am not sure what book the other two readers have read but it sure is not this one, I have been in the business for a number of years and the author offers trite remarks and even worse idioms to pad the book out. If you are interested in XML or Java I would suggest another book such as Mastering Java which actually tells you what Java and XML are for.



4. This was one of the gifts my son wanted for Christmas. He was so thrilled to add it to his "library". When I browsed through it, I discovered that it's even simple enough for me to understand!..ha ha
   Keep the Dummies books coming.



5. I'm a big fan of Barry Burd's books. This is the third book I've read from him. I bought it in 2008 and it was written several years earlier. This makes some of the material dated, but throughout most of the book, the examples compile fine. Before this book, I knew nothing about XML but knew how to program in Java. And by the time I was about a third of the way through the book, I had one of my Java programs pulling in an XML feed and displaying the results. I would recommend this book after you read Barry's Java for Dummies.

2 comments about Excel 2003 VBA Programming with XML and ASP.

1. Still not finished, but I have been mostly very happy with the book so far. The section on automation was a key interest, and proved valuable, though I was hoping for more on the shell function, and identifying the correct string to open a wider variety of applications.
   
   I was confused with a comment in chapter 17 concerning security popups in Outlook, that...
   
   "When Excel attempts to send an e-mail message using Outlook, the application responds with a message to ask permission, as shown in Figure 17-12. The only way to prevent this message from coming up is by setting the macro security setting to low."
   
   My experience to date is that digitally signing the project prevents the popups from Outlook 2003, even if the project is located in Excel. I haven't yet come to any section of the book that covers digital signatures, and the assertion that the only solution is to take the ill advised step of setting macro security to low makes me suspect that it might not be forthcoming.
   
   Chapter 12 provided a lot of detail on interacting with Access, but some of the code seemed untested (undeclared variable and mis-spelled arguments in the two CreateTextFile subs). The chapter works as a good reference, but made for difficult reading.
   
   Despite the above gripes, I have learned a tremendous amount from the book so far, and am anxious to come back for more. I liked the chapter on Class Modules, thought the native file handling in VBA was very well covered, learned a lot in the material on the Windows Scripting Host, and feel the text builds nicely from the basic to more involved topics. All in all one of the better VBA books I have read.



2. I started my VBA programming from zero for my department needs by using Google search. Although the job could be done, the process was time consuming (for search) and left questions unanswered.
   If you want to save yourself time then this is a good book to start with. The layout is pretty good, and explain things clearly. I browsed the book but didn't read every chapter but found it's informative.
   Don't expect to receive a lot of examples, but again you can find everything you need through web search.
   Advance users should look for something else, like Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications (which I owned too).
   I seldom bought computer books for long time (hey, educated by web search is free) since it's expensive and out-date too quickly. This book and above are what I'm willing to invest my money in for past few years. Beside, Amazon price is very competitive.

5 comments about Applied XML Programming for Microsoft .NET.

1. Gr8 book if you need assistance with xml programming and also helps in using all methods of reading, writing and using xml. Dino! High five.



2. Dino Esposito has total, absolute command of the subject matter that he expertly teaches in this book. This is a template for how all technical training books should be written. I wanted in-depth coverage of the XML object library in .NET and that is exactly what this book delivers. This is THE book on XML in .NET. Don't waste your money on anything else.

   It is also terrific supplemental material for the Developing XML Web Services and Server Components certification exam. I recommend Mike Gunderloy's book as an all-encompassing source (look up my review for that book); however, I recommend reading the first four chapters of this book before you start Gunderloy's book if you don't have much experience reading and writing XML in .NET. Chapters 12 and 13 on remoting and web services, respectively, are also great sources of exam prep material. In fact, Chapter 12 on .NET Remoting is the best chapter on the subject you will find anywhere.

   Terry, MCAD and MCSD for Microsoft .NET




3. Dino tells all in this superb and in depth look at XML on Microsoft's .NET platform. The book is well organized, starting at the fundamental classes and then branching out to the high abstraction level .NET classes and other Microsoft products such as SQL Server 2000 and Internet Explorer.
   
   As an example of why this book is so wonderful, there have been several situations where I needed to do something in XSLT that just didn't seem practical (maybe not even doable). The section on how to use standard .NET languages such as C# from XSLT is itself worth the price of admission.
   
   Keep in mind that readers are expected to have a good grasp of XML; the book is a .NET book.



4. I am a proficient MSXML coder but i can't get what I want (knowledge about .Net XML programming objects) from this book because the author habitually relies on advanced concepts from related technologies to explain things. So unless you are a pretty competent .Net programmer and already proficient in ADO.Net/ADO you will struggle to understand this book and struggle to understand the significance of what you are being told and why. I gave up and resorted to looking for articles on MSDN. Undoubtedly there is good stuff here but Mr Esposito writes as an extremely knowledgeable person for the already extremely knowledgeable person only.



5. Dino does a great job on this book. It is a great reference on how Microsoft handles and processes XML.
   
   This book only has one drawback that it is outdated as it refers to Visual Studio 2003 and many things in Visual Studio 2005 have been changed or are outdated.
   
   Hope they pubblish soon a book that is more up to date.

5 comments about Perl & XML (O'Reilly Perl).

1. Unfortunately, this book suffers from the same affliction that most programming books suffer from. There are absolutely no useful code examples in the book. Yes, as an experienced engineer, I can substitute my own code where the book prints to the screen or searches for monkeys, but hey, I paid for my ticket, sometimes I'd like to be told exactly what to do. If I wanted to figure out everything on my own, I wouldn't have purchased a book in the first place.



2. I have wanted to learn about XML, but I found the pure XML books dry and too theoretical. However, putting XML in the context of something familiar, i.e. Perl, made it much more accessible. This book gives a nice overview of XML parsing using event based and tree based parsers that are available as Perl modules. The book presents SAX and DOM standards compliant modules as well as modules with more Perlish interfaces, e.g. XML::Grove and XML::Twig. It discusses the pros and cons of event vs. tree parsing of XML as well as a few advanced technologies such as database integration and SOAP. The only knock I have on the book is that the examples are a bit contrived and do not show how to solve meaningful problems.



3. I liked the way this book was structured - it was a quick read over a thanksgiving family visit, and it gave a good overview of what XML is and what XML isn't, and what tools are available already in Perl to use it. I particularly liked the middle of the book, and how it dealt with trees and event streams. First there was in short intro chapter on why you'd want to parse XML as an event stream, and some simple modules that give back event streams. Then the next chapter would be a longer one on SAX - the definitive way to do event streams. Same thing with trees and DOM. It ends with some examples of real-life XML processing, such as consuming and producing RSS feeds. The book also has the best description of Unicode I've ever read, and did it with just a few pages.
   
   What ticked me off about this book were the egregious errors in the sampe code. The very first piece of code they show in chapter 3 is a 100-line XML parser that doesn't need any support modules. The problem is that it doesn't recognize any XML because the regular expressions are wrong, which was pretty confusing for me (I'm relatively new to Perl, so I figured they were just "another way of doing it" that I didn't understand). I downloaded the examples frm the O'Reily website, and they're wrong there too - so it's not just a printing error. Worse, the example XML file I tried to test the parser on was also from the tarfile I downloaded - but it was invalid XML! (example 3.4). So I was trying to learn XML with a sample parser that didn't work, on invalid XML! This is not the quality I am expecting from O'Reilly!
   (In fairness, both of these errors were in the online errata, but I'm not sure if they were corrected in the 7/04 reprint)
   
   There are other errors in the code too - so be sure and check back with the errata page if you're going to seriously use the code. If they'd run their sample code before printing, I'd probably give this book a better rating.



4. XML has begun to appear everywhere. XML has long served in hidden roles on servers and in configuration files. Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows now supports reading and writing XML to in it's wordprocessingML format. Unlike MS Word's horrible "Save As Web Page" feature, wordprocessingML, or wordML for short, is a clean usable format. The adoption of XML in a user space as common as MS Word in an accessible format means that developers have a rich opportunity in XML.
   
   The book Perl and XML focuses on the where Perl and XML meet. In asking the questions "Why Perl?", the authors Erik Ray and Jason McIntosh point to Perl's ability to handle text, strings, and regular expressions. The authors also point out in a clear and concise manner the strengths of XML as a means for structuring data.
   
   The book focuses on working with XML using Perl. Tutorials of the basics of either language are best found in another book. The author of the book recommends Learning Perl for those people starting out in Perl. The book does not assume much knowledge of XML, so it's really an XML book for Perl programmers. If you'd like a more in depth discussion of XML, you might check out Erik Ray's Learning XML.
   
   Surveying many conventional XML tools and applications, the book addresses big picture items such as tree processing and streams as well as specific items such as RSS and SOAP. Approaching XML from both a practical point of view and strategic point of view, the author provides detailed examples and observes which strategies work well for handling XML in Perl.
   
   Originally, I picked up Perl and XML to address a couple of small projects where I had to deal with XML. The examples in Perl and XML were well written and provided the information I needed to try out common Perl tools for handling XML. Unfortunately, I found that XML processing in Perl was unacceptably slow for the two projects I had at hand. In a short amount of time, I hacked together a faster solution without relying on an XML parser. That said, I gleaned a great deal from Perl and XML which I imagine I will be putting to use soon.
   
   If you're not currently working with XML, you may find yourself working sooner than you think. I couldn't more highly recommend Perl and XML for thorough treatment of the subject even if you end up hacking your own solution.



5. This is the sort of book that put O'Reilly on the map. Concise, practical, step-by-step, the kind of book that allows you to get significant amounts of actual work done by the time you finish the third chapter or so. The introduction to XML in chapter two is one of the best I've ever seen, and I've often recommended it for people as an XML Executive Summary, even those who will never write a line of Perl.
   
   Like that late 2006 early 2007 meme says: "It does just what it says on the tin."

5 comments about Understanding Web Services: XML, WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI (Independent Technology Guides).

1. This book provides a pretty good overview of web services--although it's a little heavy handed with xml. Bottom line is that i6t would be easy to wal away from this book thinking web services is simply xml schema--and miss the bigger picture.



2. We bought this book trying to find a good overview about what web-service implementation is, what WSDL means what RPC/Document style means, etc, by an expert point of view, I must say at least this is not the case.
   
   There are a lot of paragraphs with useless information, that in the first read you avoid because you don't understand, in the next reads you avoid because they are useless.
   
   Terms are confusing and mixed up, explanations also.
   
   If you like skipping paragraphs it is a good newbie introduction, if you have some background on web-service just avoid it.
   
   Really disappointing



3. I recommend this book for everyone beginning Web Services. However, I do so with a word of caution: READ IT SLOWLY AND READ IT TWICE. The book has a great spread of issues but is extremely difficult to sit down and read/work through.
   
   All the issues covered are covered lightly with the exception of the most important topics: WSDL, SOAP, UUDI and ebXML. The only thing it didn't touch on that I wish it would have was REST.
   
   Key pieces of these topics are scattered and you need to be careful to read through and keep notes about where you can find more information (I found myself keeping margin notes on where key pieces of information were in the book at the introduction of each topic).
   
   I recommend it so that you can understand the complexity and get a good overview of the topic, but I would definitely say that the book is only a good place to begin. It will leave your head spinning, but if you have purchased other books on individual topics, it will provide you with a reference on how they tie together.
   
   The book has its ups and it has its downs, but it is worth reading.



4. As a glosary is very good, if you where aming to learn how to program a web service it was not very good for me. I would prefer more code samples from the basics to advanced. Definitely you should have a previous knowledge of XML, and maybe even some basic knowledge of webservices before reading this.



5. This title is very good for understanding basic WS technologies. But is older for now and some informations are outdated. Reprint with updated information (espec. UDDIv3) would be good.