| Welcome to vBulletin FAQ |
vBulletin FAQ Navigation
Getting Started
Customizing your vBulletin
Search Engines & SEO
Making Money with a Forum
Promoting your Community
|
| Get your own vBulletin Today |
|
| Webmaster Help |
|
|
|
The XML Companion (3rd Edition)
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with X
|
The XML Companion (3rd Edition) |
Author: Neil Bradley
Published: 2001-12-12 |
List price: $44.99
Our price: $11.59
|
As of: December 02nd, 2008 09:34:48 PM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 Great book for understanding XML
I loved this book. I've got about eight or ten XML books, but this is the one I turn to for my "Why?" questions.
br /
br /It's not a tutorial or cookbook, but it explains XML logically and historically. I don't sit down at my computer with this book ready to type in stuff. This is the book that I sit down with in my comfortable armchair ready to understand XML in a way that makes sense and sticks with me. It's very readable.
 Not for the beginner, but still useful
I bought this book when I was still trying to get my head around XML and found it much more confusing than clarifying. However, many years later, once I had a solid foundation of XML, I pulled this book back out and actually did find it mostly useful. The author covers a lot of minutia that is difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere (he devotes an entire chapter to whitespace issues, for example), and if you really have a need to understand what is going on under the hood, this book can actually serve as a handy reference. Still, I do think the material could have been better presented - chapter 6 discusses "Architectural Forms", for example. I have read and re-read the explanation several times and still cannot fathom what they are or why they would be useful... there are quite a few such topics in the book.
Several reasons for 5 stars
1. Depth and breadth of topics being covered with real application make this a solid reference for XML applications, such as Apache Cocoon 1 2 Frameworks. Java is indeed a natural companion to XML.
br /
br /2. It is not a cookbook of raw XML/XSLT/CSS/XSchema/XLink/XInclude/XPointer, etc... It actually explains the Design behind the implementation leaving one to approach implementation with foresight and focus on planning before one wastes needless hours of frustration during rushed implementations.
br /
br /3. It is for someone with a solid understanding of MVC (Model/View/Controller) abstraction approaches that are pervasive in OOA/OOD that includes Smalltalk, Objective-C, Java, C++, C#, Javascript, Python, Ruby, etc...
br /
br /4. It describes XML as a means to be both a boon for turning publishing into an Art of Reuse as well as how XML solidifies many failed attempts of standards that were not able to become language agnostic. XML and all her siblings are that meta bridge.
br /
br /5. With the XSL Companion those who complained about it being either difficult to grasp or tediously complex will be vindicated and appreciate returning to this book to explain all the questions that surface along the way during any project they become involved in helping solve.
br /
br /6. Neil is very honest that this book is about wrapping your head around the XML paradigm and not about being a Dictionary of answers to all your XML application(s) needs. It should become clear the reason behind so many XML application standards. There are just so many avenues to address how could they all possibly be expressed in just one book?
 Useful and comprehensive
Bradley's book is a pretty complete guide to XML and related technologies. The main chapters are almost tutorial in style, with plenty of code examples to follow. The end of the book contains a small reference section. The topics covered are XML, XSL, XSLT, DOM, SAX, XPath, Schemas, XLink, XHTML, and CSS. Discussions are for the most part clear and accurate. I have two main complaints about Bradley. First, the prose, while accurate, is often overly verbose. It could be written more concisely and compactly. Second, each chapter is broken into sections, but the sections are not numbered, so it is difficult to locate material in the text. The main advantage is the comprehensive general coverage of XML-related technologies. Buying this one book will arm you with the knowledge to develop XML applications and content, and it will save you money. If you have very specific needs, you may need to supplement Bradley with another more focused text that delves deeper into a particular technology. Also, if you want to see longer applications presented as case studies, you might want a different text. I recommend this book for beginning and intermediate XML users who want broad, general coverage in a single book.
 Not a well written book...
...and not for a beginner. Filled with samples and graphs-which somewhat help the extremely confusing writing style. Bradley's style reminds me of the teacher I had when I was 10 years old who found it very easy to go off on a new tangent--and very difficult to be brief, concise or clear.brFine for a reference, if you already know what you want.
|
|
Our vBulletin book picks:
|
|
Find more vBulletin related products of interest.
|
