Professional XML

ISBN: 0-201-34285-5

Authors:

WroX Professional level books are authored by leading professionals in the field.  Professional XML has an authoring staff of 12!  Because the book focuses on a number of technologies that are beyond basic XML, authors with a particular expertise provide in-depth treatment of very specialized topics.  Authors include:

• Richard Anderson
• Mark Birbeck
• Michael Kay
• Steven Livingstone
• Brian Loesgen
• Didier Martin
• Steven Mohr
• Nikola Ozu
• Bruce Peat
• Jonathan Pinnock
• Peter Stark
• Kevin Williams

Photos and bios for each author are provided at the front of the book.

Pages:  1168 (Yes, this is a BIG book!)

Intended Audience: 

Professional XML is intended to serve the programmer community.  Like all WroX Press books, this title is written by programmers. As such, this is clearly not a beginner text.  One is expected to have some technical background before using the text.  The authors assume the reader already understands basic XML, has programmed in a variety of other languages, and has a working knowledge of HTML and the Web.  It is not important that the readers have deep familiarity with distributed systems and Web development, but a general awareness of multi-tier architectures and the internetworking of the Web is a plus.  The authors make an effort to provide examples of each popular programming language and platform.  Plenty of examples are provided to help you learn.

Summary: 

This book contains information about advanced topics that have a technical relationship with XML.  Each topic is actually very stand-alone.  So, each chapter pertains to a separate topic.  Chapter 1 provides an introduction to XML.  Other topics covered in the book include ODM and SAX, Namespaces, eBusiness, Formatting, and WAP.  

The authors have designed the book to be read from cover to cover.  But because the application of XML is so diverse the authors have provided learning threads to help readers follow a direct path to the knowledge they need.  The book is made up of three learning threads.

Core

The core of the book covers fundamentals about XML.  The core includes Chapter 2:  Well-Formed XML; Chapter 3: Document Type Definitions; Chapter 4: Data Modeling; and Chapter 5: Document Object Model.  These four chapters are designed to provide a programmer with enough knowledge to begin XML application programming.

XML as Data

This thread focuses on using XML as an interface between programs and systems.  Here we focus on XML as data.  The chapters in the thread show many ways that XML can be used as a data transfer mechanism.  Chapters in this thread include:  Chapter 6:  SAX (The Simple API for XML); Chapter 7:  Namespaces and Schemas; Chapter 8: Linking and Querying; Chapter 9: Manipulating XML; Chapter 10: XML and Databases; Chapter 11: Server to Server; Chapter 12: eBusiness; and Chapter 14: WAP and WML.

Visual Presentation of XML

If a human is interacting with XML, presentation (both visual and other) becomes important.  If you need to "style" XML, this is the thread to read.  Note that there is some overlap between threads.  The visualization thread includes Chapter 8: Linking and Querying; Chapter 9: Manipulating XML; Chapter 13: Styling; and Chapter 14: WAP and WML.

Case Studies

An number of case studies may be considered to be an additional learning thread.  This thread focuses on real-world application of XML.  The case studies run from Chapter 15 to Chapter 18.  One case study focuses on SOAP, Simple Object Access Protocol.  SOAP is becoming a "standard" and so should be read, not only as a case study, but as a new de facto standard.

Supporting Materials

Professional XML contains a wealth of supporting materials.  In addition to the excellent examples that fill each chapter, the Appendices of the book contain materials such as the XML Specification 1.0, SAX 1.0, and reference materials for IE5 XSLT (which differs from the final W3C XSLT Recommendation).  Appendix G provides directions for downloading and using the James Clark XT parser.

Recommendation:

I highly recommend this book for those undertaking serious XML programming beyond the basics.  I also found that the coverage of XSLT in the book is the perfect starting point for any programmer trying to learn how to develop transformation scripts.  The wealth of examples helps programmers to immediately grasp the language and its use.  Support for the developer community is provided by WroX on its Web site, www.wrox.com.

Dianne Kennedy

Editor, XML Files

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