Essential XML: Beyond Markup

I know WROX books. I have WROX books. This is *NOT* a WROX book, and thank heavens for that. WROX is a good source for the simple regurgitation of the reference manual with some straightforward examples, and they sure do get to press quickly. But they lack substance, they lack theory. Where does the real programmer go for that? To the Classic Text, and this is one. I won't repeat the other positive reviews, but I would emphasize the second half of the title: "Beyond Markup". It suggests that this text will illuminate the value of XML beyond simple document markup, and it does that like no other book on XML.The Classic Text is one that gets a permanent place on your bookshelf; comes with you when you move; gets ratty and dog-eared from use; gets passed around to colleagues. Actually I do not pass my copy around, I ask my colleagues to order their own! I have a dozen or so XML texts, but the only one I recommend these days is "Essential XML". And if you are really looking to be offended by Don Box's arrogance, don't rely on this book for that. You really need to go hear him talk in person! He is snide, arrogant -- and the future of computing.

As promised by the subtitle, this book is not a gentle introduction to angle brackets! Rather, it examines key XML technologies (XML, XPath, XSLT, SOAP) from the standpoint of an abstract information model for the exchange of typed data. This book will influence the way the industry looks at XML.It is not an easy read, but as with the authors' previous books, the effort will be richly rewarded. Highly recommended for readers who have a taste for abstraction and at least some familiarity with XML basics.

Just finished this book and I have to say it is a great book. I haven't run across any other books that are as focused towards the needs of application developers as opposed to web page designers. Finally, a book about XML that isn't chock full of HTML and JavaScript! The information in this book is exactly what I need to know, not dumbed down, and with no fluff. Superb!The book delivers on the promise of it's title. It's a book just about XML (not HTML, not JavaScript, not web servers), it teaches the essential XML technologies, and it treats XML as something that is useful beyond just markup (ie. XML is NOT JUST for web applications). I'm not doing web development, so books that look at the XML world with web biased tunnel vision don't appeal to me at all. The platform independent way this book is written is the right way to go. This book rightly recognizes that not everyone interested in XML is writing for only the web platform or only the Microsoft OS platforms. By not focusing on platform specific information, it serves a wider audience. There is some MSXML information and Xerces information in there, but that information is introduced only when necessary. The focus is on what's common across all platforms.Like the first chapter of Essential COM, the first chapter of Essential XML lays down the background theory you need to understand XML thoroughly. If you understand what XML is based on, you will better understand XML. It's as simple as that. This chapter also introduces the basics of serialized XML syntax. People that like to jump in and start coding without taking the time to develop a deeper understanding of what they are doing will not like this chapter. I guess that's why so many people are complaining about this chapter.Chapter two (titled Programming XML) contains the most thorough exposition of the DOM Level 2 and SAX2 APIs that I have seen to date. If you're going to be creating or interpreting XML using these APIs you need this book. The coverage here goes beyond the basics of just getting at the XML data, by getting into more advanced topics like reading/manipulating the XML metadata. I really appreciated the many easily digestible examples that made it clear what the code was doing in relation to the XML it was operating on. This chapter was the most applicable to my work.The rest of the book covers Navigation (XPath, XPointer), XML Schemas, and Transforms (XSLT). Coverage appears thorough (though I am no expert at these technologies yet) and again, many easily disgestible examples make things clear. The last chapter is sort of an essay on some ideas of how XML may impact component based development in the future and a little bit about how those are implemented in SOAP. Interesting, but not something I'm ready to jump into yet...I wasn't too interested in the first 2 appendices, but Appendix C (Example Gallery) gives some good, longer, more in-depth examples that would have broken up the flow of the book if they had been placed

This book is a consise resource for XML/XML-derived technologies."Essential XML", is an academic book that discusses XML at its root level (not strings with angle brackets.) Rather it delves into the XML Infoset. For users of XML who aren't writing parsers, this is the appropriate angle with which to regard XML. For programmers like myself who write business applications, the Entity model spelled out by the Infoset abstracts the user of XML from the data encoding methodology. This is especially important in the new world of Microsoft .Net which features multiple encoding styles.Others I have discussed this book with usually complain about two items.1.No "real-world" examples. There aren't any samples in Visual Basic that show how to create an XML Document from a database query and display it to the user. This model is very similar to that of "Essential COM." This is not a book that will enable you to lift code (there are lots of websites for that). It targets the user who wants a better notion of what XML is and how it should be seen.2.Not enough uses of the Microsoft XML Parser. I work entirely in Microsoft tools and I know Don Box has been revered as the "Messiah of COM", but where others think that the lack of use of the Microsoft DOM is bad, I think it is great. It really underscores the point that XML is all about interop. And the use of Java in samples that call DOM and SAX implementations is easy to read from all languages. DOM implementations are allowed some variance in how they do certain things. Rather than waste time discussing a particular implementation, the authors chose to keep it vendor neutral.This book is definitely not for every developer. I have two shelves of computer books. The first one contains how-to books, the second contains academic books. This book resides on my academic shelf in between Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" and a Numerical Analysis textbook from college. With XML being such a hyped technology this book does a great job of not promising to solve world hunger or even make applications easier to write and maintain. It covers XML completely and to the point.

Beware: if you're expecting one of those tomes on XML thatlooks like it will dislocate your shoulder when you pick it up, then this is not the book for you. This is not a 'how to' book per se.This book is very condensed hence the use of the word "essential" in the title. The book starts by explaining the Information Set...requirements that describe an abstract XML document without any reference to syntax. This lays down a firm theoretical foundation upon which the rest of the book builds. This is probably the 'dry' first 75 pages other reviewers are referring to.I suspect that other reviewers are looking for a book where they can mindlessly lift out whole code samples and inject them into their already late applications. This is not that kind of book. Visual Basic programmers of the world - die!This book does not have pictures of multiple authors on the front jacket (what incredible egos must be required to do that) that has become so popular lately. You must apply the information found in this book yourself. This book treats the reader with respect assuming they have a modicum of intelligence. No talking down here. The personal experiences of the authors' shine through. So often other XML books are merely some watered down re-write of some existing online help where clearly the author has little or no prior experience.Describing the theoretical origins of any standard(s) (let alone the XML standards) is not exactly dinner table conversation at best so I appreciate the authors' bravery at tackling such a topic. This is usually a thankless task, but much needed. The documents basics covered in the opening chapters are done with great detail including the BNF (Backus Naur Form) definitions of Information Set concepts like names, entities and attributes. This, I thought, was a nice touch.The code samples, as other reviewers have pointed out, are only in Java. As the authors point out SAX has only been defined in Java. It therefore makes sense use Java throughout for other code fragments. When covering the sections on DOM Level 2 it makes complete sense to use Java as DOM Level 2 is simply a set of abstract interfaces and lends itself perfectly to the Java language interface concept. The chapters on Navigation and Transforms are OK and don't go into massive depth. For a more rigorous coverage of these topics, see Michael Kay's book "XSLT" (ISBN: 1-861003-12-9).This book does a good job at mentioning the difference between two popular parser and DOM API implementations, namely, Microsoft MSXML v2.6 and XERCES J Parser. Although MSXML is now at v3.0 the overlap is probably about 98% so you shouldn't miss anything.Appendix A is a bit of waste of paper as it's nothing more than a straight reprint of the Information Set W3 specification.Appendix B contains twelve pages of XML Productions.Appendix C however contains a good Example Gallery. Examples include, "SAX/DOM Examples", "XPath Expressions", "Programming XPath", "XML Schema Examples", "XSLT Examples