Customer Reviews

THE XML COMPANION

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Particularly for the thoughtful reader who wants to understand the rationale behind the standards decisions- a level of understanding that makes the details much more meaningful and far easier to remember. I very much hope that Bradley will update his perspicacious elucidation of the xml specs (eg on schemas) as they continue to evolve. Easily my favorite among the dozen or so general xml books with which I am familiar.

This is the book to read if you want to understand what XML is and why you should be interested in it.

Having looked at most XML books currently on the market, I like this one best because (1) it is short (2) it is authoritative (3) it is reasonably current (4) it talks about XML *and* all the related standards/proposals (XSL, XSLT, XPointer, XLink, etc) (5) it gives you the big picture and the details, but it never gets lost in the details.

*After* you read this book, you go ahead and buy a programming book for whatever platform you happen to be working on.

It is a common misunderstanding that introductory computer books have to be 1000+ pages long, must contain 50% code, and have to be written to the lowest common denominator. This book does not fall in this category; it is written for grown ups.

To summarize, this is the kind of book that usually gets published under the O'Reilly label.

This book has good coverage on a good deal regarding parsing of an xml document. But beyond that small part, this book provides the reader very little else, and does a terrible job in explaining the purpose and uses of XML. If you already know a great deal about XML this book could help, but even for that, it is by no mean thorough or 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.

...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.
Fine for a reference, if you already know what you want.

don't expect to learn how to use xml from this book. the structure and layout of the material is incomprehensible, doesn't lend itself to self-study and the chapters do not seem to "build on concepts described in previous chapters" (as touted in the preface)--rather, discussing and expounding on specious, irrelevant and unimportant topics. since i obtained this book with the intention of learning xml (and not the incredibly trivial details bradley insists on explicating), i expected to see some (at least one) examples of an actual xml document. no such luck. don't buy this book if you want to know *how* to use xml--total and complete waste of time and money. perhaps it could be of use to some people however. you never know.

This is not that great a book, in fact it is fairly poor. The writing is confused in places and the examples badly thought through. Technically minded readers will find it largely pointless, and will offer little of any great use. Over-rated.

This book is clearly not for a beginner, nor should it be. Many reviews give it less than five stars due to the fact that it's a bad tutorial. Well it wasn't designed as one, as you should see in the title XML **Companion**. It's designed as a thorough reference of XML and related technologies. Neil is really up to date with his stuff. I couldn't find another book, (and I've skimmed through all of them), that covers everything. Coverage of technical issues like white space normalization, Relax, Trex, Relax NG, etc... It's wondeful.
Please don't buy this book as a tutorial, but rather as a desktop reference. It's a must on all XML programmer's bookshelves.

Not a good text if you are trying to learn xml. The writing style is needlessly technical and there are way too few examples. Seems to cover the features of xml pretty thoroughly. Might be a good reference for someone already familiar with xml.

Not a good text if you are trying to learn xml. The writing style is needlessly technical and there are way too few examples. Seems to cover the features of xml pretty thoroughly. Might be a good reference for someone already familiar with xml.