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BOOK REVIEW XML for Dummies Ed Tittel, Norbert Mikula, and Ramesh Chandak, 1998 Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. ISBN 0-7645-0360-X "This is not a book if you want to get into the details of learning XML. It describes what XML is, how it relates to HTML and SGML, what are the fundamentals of XML, and what are some of the applications of XML." Reviewed by Pawan R. Vora @ the reviewers Pawan R. Vora is a Human Factors Engineer with U S WEST in Denver, Colorado. I am sure you have heard about Extensible Markup Language (XML). And if you have read anything about XML, I am sure you have the impression that it is a panacea to all the problems on the Web. To judge these claims first-hand, I have been learning about XML for some time now. However, my earlier attempts to "really" learn XML were a bit disappointing. The books that I read on XML, after a few initial chapters, stumped me with all the technical stuff. Although I survived and learned a few things about XML, since then I have been in search for some really good (read basic) books on XML. So, I was delighted to see a dummies book on XML. I thought, now I can really nail this XML stuff. Now I'll be able to write XML documents and those complex Document Type Definitions (DTDs). Unfortunately, I was disappointed! I don't want to completely blame the authors though. It's just that the book didn't match my expectations of what I was going to learn. Now that I have read the book, I am neither more educated about XML nor can I write a better XML document or DTD. This is not a book if you want to get into the details of learning XML. It describes what XML is, how it relates to HTML and SGML, what are the fundamentals of XML, and what are some of the applications of XML. Although a few sections describe how to write XML, they really don't do justice to a hands-on learner. If you are interested in writing XML and want to get started, I'd highly recommend Sean McGrath's book XML by Example: Building E-Commerce Applications (I have started reading the book and I will review it in the next issue of Internetworking). However, if all you want to do is understand what XML is, how it relates to current technologies, and how it will make the Web a better place, you may want to pick up this book. This book is organized into four major sections: Why XML is "eXtreMely cooL" Extending Documents and Their Markup XML Language and Applications The Part of Tens Part I provides an overview of XML; discusses relationships among XML, HTML, and SGML; and explains the terminology used by the XML Specification. Part II delves into the details of XML. It explains well-formed and valid XML documents and provides a brief overview of the XML markup and its complementary hyperlinking and presentation components -- that is, XLL (Extensible Linking Language) and XSL (Extensible Style Language). Part III provides a brief overview of some of the noteworthy applications of XML such as CML (Chemical Markup Language), CDF (Channel Definition Format), MathML (Mathematical Markup Language), and so forth. Finally, Part IV, The Part of Tens, summarizes the essence of XML by offering lists of "tens"; for example, Ten Uses of XML, Ten Terrific XML Sites, and Top Ten XML Tools. Considering that this is a "dummies" book, one would think that it should be read sequentially from Ch. 1 to Ch. 22. Please, don't! Instead, read it in the following order: Introduction, Ch.1-3, Ch. 21, Ch. 5, Ch. 7-8, and then Part III. Chapter 4, A Blue Print for Extensibility: The XML Spec, should have been kept in the end for those who care and want to read the XML spec. (If I wanted to read the spec, why would I pick up a dummies book?) Although it could have been a useful chapter, allocating only 9 pages to it doesn't really do justice to the complexity of reading the spec . I think what disappointed me the most was this book's treatment of writing XML markup. Although Chapter 6, Building XML Markup, covers some fundamentals of writing XML, I doubt if anyone will be able to write a simple XML document after reading this chapter. I was looking forward to reading this chapter and I thought the book would help me clarify some of the basic concepts about XML. But, it just didn't do it. I don't know why the authors felt that 25 pages of information were sufficient to write an XML document or a Document Type Definition (DTD). Probably the most useful and interesting chapters were in Part III: XML Language and Applications. Here the authors talk about some of the XML applications such as Chemical Markup Language (CML), MathML (Mathematical Markup Language), CDF (Channel Definition Format), OSD (Open Software Description), WIDL (Web Interface Definition Language), and several others. This section clearly demonstrates the versatility and extensibility of XML. Finally, you want to take a look at Chapters 20 and 22 for a good list of XML sites and XML tools. The Web sites recommended in this book actually gave me more useful information than the book itself. In that sense, this book did help me learn XML! One suggestion for those interested in learning XML: get a browser that supports XML. I used Internet Explorer (IE) 5 beta, which has a pretty good support for XML. I had used Symposia before (trial version), which does a pretty good job as well. I haven't really tried Netscape's Gecko with NGLayout engine (http://www.mozilla.org), which supports XML as well. If any of you try it, please send me an e-mail (pvora@uswest.com) and let me know what you think. © Internet Technical Group Last update: March 6, 1999 URL: http://www.sandia.gov/itg/newsletter/mar99/review_xml.html hosted by Sandia National Labs Disclaimer: Neither Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately-owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, or any agency thereof. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Sandia Corporation, the United States Government or any agency thereof.