Intended Audience:
Professional ASP XML is
intended to serve the programmer community.
Like all WroX Press books, this title is written
by programmers and is clearly not a
beginner text. This book has a specific
audience of intermediate to advanced ASP
programmers who know nothing of XML.
XML and related technologies are therefore
explained in great detail. ASP
programming, on the other hand, is assumed
as a proficiency and little explanation is
provided. In addition to the
assumption that the reader is already an
ASP programmer, the writers also assume
that readers have an understanding of the
Microsoft internet platform, HTML,
JScript, and Visual Basic programming.
Summary:
This book is divided into three main
sections. In addition, seven
appendices are provided to serve as a
reference for ASP XML programmers.
The first section of the book provides
a ground-up introduction to XML.
This section consists of five
chapters. XML is introduced in
Chapter 1 and put into context with SGML,
HTML and other markup languages.
Chapter 2 provides a concise overview of
XML structure and syntax. The third
and fourth chapters concentrate on
validating using both DTDs and XML
Schemas. The DOM and its uses are
introduced in Chapter 5. A great
deal of attention is given to DOM
programming using Microsoft's Internet
Explorer and the MSXML parser.
The second section is the heart of this
book. This section, running ten
chapters, concentrates on XML and ASP
programming. First the authors
investigate the fit between XML and
ASP. They also provide concrete
examples of how XML can be processed with
ASP code. In Chapter 7, Cascading
Stylesheets are introduced and strategies
are provided for using CSS with XML.
In this chapter, XSL is also introduced
and a comparison is drawn between CSS and
XSL so programmers can make an educated
choice between the two, or can effectively
use them
together. In Chapters 8 and 9, both
basic and advanced XSL programming
techniques are provided. Chapter 10
provides an XSL case study to show how to
put theory into action. Chapter
11 concentrates on integrating XML with
ActiveX Data Objects. Here it is
clear that writers make the assumption
that readers are already quite proficient
with ADO techniques. Chapters 12 and 13
concentrate on data binding and techniques
to bind XML on both the client and server
side. Chapter 14 focuses on creating
XML procedure libraries. Here, the
wealth of examples that is the hallmark of
WroX Press books, provide a starting
library for XML ASP programmers.
Readers should remember that purchasing
the book includes access to the website
where these examples can be
downloaded. Chapter 15 provides a
glimpse into the future and introduces
useful new technologies that will emerge
over the next few years.
The third section of Professional ASP
XML, provides a series of case studies
that help readers apply what they have
learned. Case studies provide basic
designs and supporting code samples for
using XML to create an on-line survey, to transfer data,
to implement an XML-based
shopping cart, to control workflow and to support Web transactions.
Reference Appendices include the XML
specification, Microsoft's XML Reference,
Microsoft's XSL Reference (which differs
somewhat from W3C XSL), Stylesheet
Properties from W3C's CSS2 specification,
and the SAX (Simple API for XML)
specification.
This title has a very specific reading
audience. It is designed by
programmers for programmers and contains
everything an ASP programmer will need to
become a self-taught XML ASP
programmer. Everything from
explanations, to examples, to case
studies, to reference materials is
provided in Professional ASP XML and on the WroX
website (www.wrox.com). This book is
highly recommended if you fit the
parameters of the intended audience.
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