Building Web Sites with XML [With CDROM]

This book is an excellent resource for the topics that it covers. However, many of the topics had not yet been released at the time of publication. Rather, the author was able to work along with the development team of XML to get information on those subjects. Before you pick this book up, you should also have knowledge of XML, not only what is behind it and what it is, but also the basic syntax. If you have a working knowledge of XML and can live with semi-outdated information, I would strongly recommend this title.

I liked this book. As a consultant, I'm forced to assimilate new technology without consideration for my personal interest. I lean more towards the pragmatics of solving my customer's problems, and while XML as a data transport mechanism can be a very appropriate technology choice, XML for presentation, in my experience so far, has fallen short in providing any compelling argument for adoption over conventional client technology in combination with server dynamics. This book provides a fine over view of a subject that seems to be rarely addressed directly. It provide good comparative evaluation of technologies, but leans slightly toward Microsoft Centricity - mostly because at the time of the books writing Microsoft IE was the only browser to offer any XML support and it's XML on the server technology was arguably the most mature.The book provides a good look at what you would use different XML related technology for and how you might approach certain problems including how to support XML enabled browsers and "XML Challenged" browsers in the same code base. The book comes with a CD, the good news is you don't have to type in the code samples; the bad news is the samples have lots of bugs and yje CD contains ONLY samples from the book. No extra code or goodies.The Prentice Hall XML Series is well regarded. This book is a valuable tutorial for Web Developers - Front End or Back [email protected]

This book was my introduction to XML. I purchased it specifically with the intention of creating the XML driven web site at http://mobile.act.cmis.csiro.au. The book provided an excellent background on the purpose, advantages and development of XML and the use of XSLT for transforming XML to HTML for viewing. It also describes the document object model and its use and has short sections on document type definitions and XML schemas. Unusually for a computing book I found it a great read and couldn't put it down until I'd read cover to cover with some skimming where there was too much detail for a first pass.The book aims to be "platform neutral" and describes implementations in Java and the use of Apache in the Unix environment however there is an emphasis on the Microsoft environment, due mainly to the native support in the Microsoft browser and the integration of various components and tools that make this environment easy to use for XML development. The anti Microsoft fraternity may not approve of this emphasis but it suited my needs, as it was the Microsoft environment I was intending to use.It is apparent throughout the book that XML standards and development tools are still very new and undergoing rapid change. The book describes a number of XML vocabularies that are in early stages of adoption, discusses standards that are still evolving and includes speculation like "This chapter... examines... and discusses the role XML will play over the next several years." This makes for a contemporary text and is in part what makes the book an interesting read as I got quite excited by some of the scenarios described and possibilities that became apparent. But it does mean the book will rapidly become dated and need a second edition. It also left me with a feeling that the book was rushed for publication in an unfinished state. The book includes a CD that contains the files for a "full blown Web site" that "includes template files, style sheets, and server pages that you can use to create your own site for serving XML." The techniques employed are discussed in the book and this is a great approach. I created a new directory in the Web server's path and copied the files and subdirectories to my new directory with the intention of starting with a working site and modifying the files supplied to create my own site as suggested. This was a great disappointment. Nothing worked. Absolute rather than relative addressing was used so that hyperlinks were invalid. The cascading style sheets were full of errors so didn't work. The scripts assumed my computer had a recent version of browscap.ini, which most computers wouldn't so they didn't work, and it wasn't obvious why. Getting it to function was tough because fixing up the problems with something you don't yet understand is a big ask. Had I realized how much effort it would take I would not have used the sample templates as a starting point for building a Web site. As well the site includes a database sample

hi, i can found herer it is the good xml book for all web developer.

As the title suggests, this book is targeted for Webmasters with some knowledge of client-side scripting assumed. The examples are clear and most are general enough to be usable in any website. Later parts of the book go into short descriptions of XML-related products currently on the market and their inevitable quirks (most being beta code). Much of this would have been better handled with a link to the author's website considering that a good deal of this info may be obsolete in a few weeks. In the same vein, the included CD which includes a small example website done using XML could have easily been provided online, reducing the overall cost of the book.