Product Description

Dont waste time on 1,000-page tomes full of syntax; this book is all you need to get ahead in XML development. Renowned web developer Sas Jacobs presents an essential guide to XML. Beginning XML with DOM and Ajax is practical and comprehensive. It includes everything you need to know to get up to speed with XML development quickly and painlessly.

Jacobs begins by presenting an overview of XMLits syntax, rules, vocabularies, and the hows and whys of validity. She also covers the current state of XML support in todays web browsers. Next, Jacobs covers all of the basic essential uses of XML. Youll learn how to display XML data using CSS, and transform XML data using XSLT. Youll even learn about dynamic XML scripting using the XML DOM.

The last part of the book covers advanced server-side XML uses in real-world applications, including displaying XML data in Flash, and XML-driven PHP and ASP.NET applications. And last but not least, Jacobs provides a perfect introduction to Ajax development.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #157542 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

About the Author
Sas is a Web developer who loves working with Flash. She set up her business Anything Is Possible in 1994, working in the areas of web development, IT training and technical writing. The business works with large and small clients building web applications with ASP.NET, Flash, XML and databases.
Sas has also spoken at conferences such as Flash Forward, MXDU and FlashKit on topics relating to XML and dynamic content in Flash. In her spare time, Sas is passionate about travelling, photography and enjoying life. One of her most fervent wishes is that Flash will take over the Web!

Customer Reviews

the book for XML in the browser
The book do the right job for who want to learn the XML in the context of the browser , and i consider it XML in the Browser defenitive guide , beginning with the fundamentals of XML for writing well formed XML documents , then illustrate what you need to know about XSL , XPath , XPointer , xhtml , MathMl , SVG , WSDL , SOAP , RSS , VoiceXML , SMIL and Database output formats , then illustrate how to manipulate XML in the client-side using W3C DOM , XSLT and ADOBE flash XML class and AJAX then end up with server side XML manipulation using PHP and .NET .

Informative But, Deceptive Title
I am a beginning web designer as i was assigned by the church i work at to pick up books and learn how to make a website. I bought this book after deciding to follow through a roadmap series, provided by apress publishers, that i found on the back of Beginning CSS Web Development, which by the way is a great book for those wanting to learn CSS and enjoy doing so. Simon Collison is very entertaining and knows how to properly instruct and teach you in the arts of CSS web development.

Maybe i should have read Sas Jacobs Beginning XML with DOM and Ajax before reading Simon Collison because after reading Simon's book first i was very disappointed in Sas Jacobs way of teaching XML. This book is full of theory which isn't necesarily a bad thing, but it also shoots code out there and half the time there is no explanation as to where it came from. XML isn't applied very well to web development in this book so if you are looking for ways to tie XML into web design don't expect much out of this book.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that this book isn't going to get you going asap into utilizing XML in your dreamweaver program or Flash CS3. I would like to compare this book as a very borring Junior level college lecture class. the kind of class that forces you to go out and learn stuff on your own.

The book impliments different coding techniques and languages to impliment with XML such as CSS and XSLT and Javascript. There is a whole chapter on CSS which isn't bad but i had also already read a book on CSS so i was ready to go, but the XSLT chapters were quite dreadful. I had no clue what was going on or how to properly form an XSLT stylesheet. Its something that i'll have to look at on my own from other sources. The book showed examples of things you could do with XSLT rather than show you how to write XSLT.

I really wish the book wouldn't waste so much time on code that isn't going to work on cross browsers. Jacobs repeatedly will show you an example that will work on IE 6 but wont work on Mozilla or Opera or Safari. Or it will work on Mozilla and not the others. Either way it just seems like she could give you the examples that work on all of them and then say if you do it this way it won't work on these browsers because... there never really is much of an explanation.

The plus in the book is that Sas Jacobs does know what she is talking about. She gets too indepth for having the book labeled as "Beginning XML". So maybe they could have picked a better title for the book and it would be alright. The book is more intended for those wanting to expound on XML beings it is a Metalanguage and has a vast amount of capabilities. Its a book for those who are very intuitive when it comes to coding. People that are good problem solvers and already have a web portfolio started. Its a book for people that are not me, and thats someone that is looking how to build a dynamic website from scratch with no prior experience in web design and web development.

So if you are a beginner looking to pick up on XML watch out for this book. Maybe try somewhere else. The book will give you a good lecture on XML and will help you understand XHTML better as well as a few other languages, but you won't be utilizing XML very well any time soon.

Other books i own and have read and would recomend to beginnig web designers:

"The essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP" -good book.
"Beginning CSS Web Development from Novice to Professional" -great choice buy it.
"Foundation Actionscript Animation" -great book.
"Learning ActionScript 3.0" -good book.

Convoluted XML, From Novice to Lost
The book barely touches XML, and when it does, it keeps comparing it to XHTML. In fact, a lot of examples are about XHTML (and I thought this book was about XML). There aren't any real-world examples in how to use XML, just theoretical talk on ideas of use. I can understand that XHTML is the marriage of HTML and XML, but does the book have to use more examples of XHTML than explaining what XML is? Obviously I was still lost about the use of XML. The book also covers formatting XML with CSS, for presenting XML in certain formatting light. Um, isn't that what XHTML is for? Presentation? I know XML is for holding data, even configuration files, but this book doesn't even introduce you to such ideas, nor does it explore those type of concepts. Just more focus on presenting XML as a displayable document in the web browser (XHTML anyone?) I found myself skimming pages until I reached the end, and felt ripped-off. I was also lost on the whole idea of using namespaces for XML, which the book did a good job of not explaining the use of it in real-world scenarios. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this book.