XML has been the biggest buzzword on the Internet community for the past year. But how do you cut through all the hype and actually put it to work? Java revolutionized the programming world by providing a platform-independent programming language. XML takes the revolution a step further with a platform-independent language for interchanging data. Java and XML share many features that are ideal for building web-based enterprise applications, such as platform-independence, extensibility, reusability, and global language (Unicode) support, and both are based on industry standards. Together Java and XML allow enterprises to simplify and lower costs of information sharing and data exchange. Java and XML shows how to put the two together, building real-world applications in which both the code and the data are truly portable. This book covers:

• The basics of XML
• Using standard Java APIs to parse XML
• Designing new document types using DTDs and Schemas
• Writing programs that generate XML data
• Transforming XML into different forms using XSL transformations (XSL/T)
• XML-RPC
• Using a web publishing framework like Apache-Cocoon

This is the first book to cover the most recent versions of the DOM specification (DOM 2), the SAX API (SAX 2) and Sun's Java API for XML.

Rating:

Rating:

Rating:

Java and XML Review,  April 13 2001
Submitted by John   [Respond | View]

God, I hated this book!

I have bought and read 5 or 6 O'Reilly books and have come to the conclusion that O'Reilly makes the absolute best non-fluff reference books out there. However, this book makes me wonder. The first 7 chapters are adequately done--then the writer ventures into what other messages describe as "his own pet API" JDOM. My question is "who cares"? I didn't buy this book for something I haven't heard of.

However, I was personally insulted by the STREAM of negative comments that the writer makes towards Microsoft and their products throughout the book. Like it or not, Microsoft is a major player in the world of computing and not every tech-head programmer (aka me) does not worship at the altar of UNIX and platform independence. I do not understand the strategy of a writer making comments like "forced to use Microsoft's parser" in the first chapter of the book and expecting any pro-Microsoft to continue reading. Since I spent $40, I did and had a very hard time finishing it.

John.


Java and XML Review,  April 10 2001
Submitted by Mike Miller   [Respond | View]

Excellent book!

I started reading another XML book - Teach Yourself XML in 21 days which put me to sleep, TWICE. Then, after hearing Brett give a talk at a Java Users conference I decided to give this book a try and it was well worth it. I am now recommending this book to friends interested in learning more about Java and XML.

I like the approach of using the Apache (free) software versions of Xerces, Xalan and Cocoon. This allows you to follow along with the code, modify the examples and create your own.

The book gets you started on all of the current APIs: SAX, DOM, and JDOM with sample code that works. If you need an API reference manaul, this books isn't for you.

The author answered an outstanding question long before the Oreilly folks ever got back to me with a response that they couldn't answer my question and would forward the question to the author.




Java and XML Review,  February 28 2001
Submitted by Will Sargent   [Respond | View]

I am sad to say that this is the first O'Reilly book I have come across where I have felt like asking for a refund afterwards.

My biggest objection has to be that the author pads out the middle of the book with his own pet API, JDOM. This is not an "official" API (i.e. no independent implementation), it's not widely used, and it hasn't even made it through peer review. Nevertheless, it takes up a full chapter of the book, and most of the examples following that point are written in... well, guess. Begins with a J.

Following this stance, the book's stance on SAX and DOM seems to be written in part as polemic against their use. After a while, I started grinding my teeth every time I read about the wonders of JDOM.

The book has a tendency to repeat itself at times and feels as though too little editing done. There are parts of the book which are not "about" XML at all, but are about programs which use XML. Apache Xerces and Xalan were welcome additions to the book, but did we really need to read about JSP vs XSP and Cocoon? They actually detract from the book by telling only half the story -- I noticed that although the book talks about XSL to a large extent, the book is not clear on the performance & memory hit of using XSL as opposed to a SAX-like API.

I was looking for a complete, clear reference of SAX and DOM in this book, with examples of how they were used in parsing and possibly an annotated guide to how the specs came together. I didn't get it.




Java and XML Review,  February 16 2001
Submitted by Anonymous   [Respond | View]

Excellent book in keeping with the O'Reilly tradition. The book has explained the concepts very well, especially if you are new to XML. It has a good connectivity of thoughts through the chapter. It is clear that the author has a very good grasp of what he is writing about, compared to some other. While I'd have enjoyed the marginal verbosity on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the schedule pressures faced by me made it a little less so.


Java and XML Review,  February 01 2001
Submitted by Adrian Yan   [Respond | View]

This is an excellent book on Java with XML. It doesn't not teach you everything about XML. One problem I have with the book is that the amount of errors, however, the author respond to my email very quick. One thing I don't like about it is that its flow is slow, very slow. I think I'm so used to the concept of "Pick up a OReilly book and become a good programmer in a week". The author really took his time to explain all the stuff.


Java and XML Review,  December 20 2000
Submitted by Dave   [Respond | View]

It's been a while since I read this book, but I saw this review forum and figured I should share my experience with this book. Overall I am usually impressed with O'Reilly books, but this one was distinctly poor. This book had numerous editing problems (seems like they rushed this one to press) and a weird continuity to it. It just didn't flow nicely at all. But I think my biggest complaint would be that I found way too much info on the simple things that I either already new, or had no trouble understanding (this book was excessively verbose IMHO) and not enough on the topics that are more advanced, and more useful for programers. I don't think we really needed to see a chapter on xml configuration files! One good thing is JDOM, but that doesn't make up for the book''s poor quality. I would have liked to have seen more on newer changing topics, despite the fact they are changing frequently, ones like XPath, XPointer, more on XSLT, and XML Schema. I could go on, but I won't =)


Java and XML Review,  November 19 2000
Submitted by Donald W. Larson   [Respond | View]

Java and XML

Paperback, First printing, 465 pages

By Brett McLaughlin

Published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Copyright © June 2000

ISBN: 0-596-00016-2

Review written: November 19, 2000

By Donald W. Larson

Email: dwlarson@sd.znet.com

Web Site: https://www.sandiegodon.com/

Book reviews: https://sd.znet.com/~dwlarson/bookReviews.html

Java and XML are very important current pieces of technology. Individually, both subjects stand on their own and many books have been written on them. This is the first book I have read where both technologies are combined in a powerful and useful way.

I used the samples from the book on my Macintosh running MRJ 2.2.1 under MacOS 9.0.4. I used the XML Parser for Java and Xalan Processor where I could. The code samples for chapters 1 through 7 are available on my personal site https://sd.znet.com/~dwlarson/xml.html, however I was not able to run the samples after chapter 7 due to MacOS limitations or the inability to obtain the JDOM compiled binaries from O'Reilly.

Chapter 1 introduces, defines, and describes most of the common components of XML: DTD's (Document Type Definitions), XML Schema (Designed to replace and amplify DTD's), PI's (Programming Instructions), Namespaces (Mappings between element prefix and URI), XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language), XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation), XPath (XML Path Language), XQL (Represent database queries), XSP (Extensible Server Pages).

Further along in Chapter 1, the two models primarily used: SAX (Simple API for XML) and DOM (Document Object Model) are introduced as well as some of the common uses of XML today including some discussion of XML Frameworks.

Chapter 2 uses a base example to explain the parts of an XML file: Header, XML Instructions, Document Type Declarations. It also explains the content in terms of namespaces, elements and attributes. Also what makes XML documents well-formed and valid. Enough detail is provided to understand those concepts. However, I also recommend the XML Pocket Reference (ISBN: I-56592-709-5) be read along in conjunction with this chapter to help solidify the foundation.

Chapter 3 uses the SAX approach and an XML Parser, and takes the reader through in great detail the parsing of the base document. Using the provided Java code, one learns to: instantiate the Reader objects to manage the base document, register the ContentHandler interface, a callback interface used by XML parsers to notify your program of SAX events as they are found in the XML document, use the Document Locator to find elements in the base document, and employ Error Handling techniques.

Chapter 4 continues with SAX and discusses constraining XML through the use of DTD's and Schemas. There are differences in both approaches and sufficient clarity is presented for the reader to see the advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

Chapter 5 speaks to validation issues with a parser using SAX: turning on Validation, output of XML Validation, and describing the DTDHandler Interface.

Chapter 6 brings out the uses of transforming XML using Xalan and covering: XSL, Formatting Objects, XSL Transformations, XML Path Language (XPath), XSL Templates, Control Structures (Filtering Using XPath, Looping and Iteration, Choosing Elements), User XSL Elements and Attributes, and Copying Data.

Chapter 7 introduces the DOM approach to parsing XML and is the most widely used method for using XML and Java. The weakness of the SAX approach is discussed. I suggest that O'Reilly consider updating source code for this chapter in particular. The errata often does not show clearly where fixes to code need to take place. Complete source code updates should be made to the web site as fixes are made. The DOM explanations cover: DOM and Java, DOM Parsers and Outputs, Nodes and the DOM Tree, modifying a DOM Tree, and memory performance and Gotcha's.

Those first seven chapters form the foundation of the balance of the book's chapters and in their own light thoroughly explain Java and XML.

Chapter 8 expands on the use of O'Reilly's own JDOM library (which really should be distributed in binary format by O'Reilly) which simplifies using XML and Java.

Chapter 9 describes using an XML Frameworks package that runs on Unix and looks very powerful especially the section of Formatting Objects.

Chapter 10 mentions XML-RPC, an approach to send messages between applications instead of using Java's built-in RMI methods. XML-RPC is more lightweight and enables communication between non-Java applications thus overcoming one of the limitations of RMI.

Chapter 11 points out the uses of XML as configuration files, primarily on Unix computers using JDOM, SAX, and DOM.

The last three chapters cover the creation of XML using Java and then how this ties into Business-to-Business real-world applications. Chapter 14 discusses the future of XML Schema and what is to come.

Two Appendices are included to cover the API Reference and the new SAX 2.0 features.

Finally an index is provided to help locate those terms and topics quickly.

I learned a lot from this book and recommend people wanting to understand the two technologies consider purchasing a copy. As I indicated earlier, it would be helpful to readers if O'Reilly would keep the source code updated and provide compiled binaries of their JDOM code.

Rating: 9 out of 10

This rating is my own personal value system and as such is very subjective. I think a rating of 5 means I would read finish reading a book. A rating of 10 would indicate I had trouble putting a book down and have no complaints at all about it.


Java and XML Review,  November 15 2000
Submitted by Boris Krivulin   [Respond | View]

This book achieves the goal of breaking through all the hype associated with
XML and shows what it really is. However, this book is nowhere close to
the standard of o'rielly books. Here are three reasons,

First of all, it is unnecessarily thick, which makes it more like one of the
'* in 21 days' books; the author repeats himself often.

Second, although the author shows that working with XML really means
reading or generating a tree, something that programmers have been doing
for the last thirty years, he is not willing to admit this directly,
and presents XML as some sort of unseen magic.

Finally, the book is written in a "packer" style, and not a "mapper" style
(were "packer" and "mapper" are as described in "The Programmer's Stone"
available on SlashDot).

Having said that, I have not heard of any other book that describes
practical usage of XML. Therefore, I still advise to read the book,
just to get started.

I wish that all o'rielly books were as good as 'Advanced Perl Programming'.




Java and XML Review,  September 10 2000
Submitted by Phillip S. Givens   [Respond | View]

     This book is excellent. It is well written and organized and thoroughly thought out. It is one of the first books to appear on the xml scene. Usually that means incompleteness, but not in this case.

     The author has laid the content out in an alternating java/xml fashion. After an introductory chapter, which describes the plethora of acronyms in xml, he spends several chapters alternating in xml/java. One chapter would describe an aspect of xml, and the next would tell you how to put it to use.

     The second half of the book goes into putting this technology to use in practical situations and the details of java-specific xml technologies, such as jdom and cocoon.

    This book is perfect for any one armed with a little knowledge of java and the question "What the heck is XML?".


Java and XML Review,  September 05 2000
Submitted by Jared Robinson   [Respond | View]

When I first looked at this book, it looked like good quality. However, now that I am actually going through it from cover to cover, I am disappointed by the disorganized writing style. Normally, O'Reilly books are very good quality, but this one is sub-standard. Maybe the author needed a better editor.

Perhaps some parts of the book are confusing because the technology is so new, and some of it hasn't been standardized yet.

I believe that the examples could be improved with line-by-line comments in some areas.




Java and XML Review,  September 05 2000
Submitted by Viktor Gritsenko   [Respond | View]

I wish all books were as good as this one.
Rarely am I happy with books. What a satisfying feeling: not to have something to criticize. This way my energy is preserved and very useful void is formed. This void will ultimately generate some creative ideas which I will utilize.

Yes, I am being serious, in case you wonder.

Only one little note: JDOM 1.0 (production /or distribution?) has not materialized yet, even though it is claimed by the book. Nevertheless, JDOM in its current state is perfectly fine machine that works for me.

Man, I'm happy with the book.


Java and XML Review,  August 25 2000
Submitted by vara   [Respond | View]

very useful for java programmers in xml-related projects.Explanation is clear and lucid.


Java and XML Review,  August 21 2000
Submitted by Dan Sackinger   [Respond | View]

Finally! XML from a developer's standpoint! I've read several books on XML that have been mainly a regurgitation of the specifications without much attempt to help a developer understand how the technology can actually be used.

This is the first book I have read on this subject that actually bridges this gap and gives useful, working examples of how XML can be used in your Java applications to solvereal-world problems. Instead of giving a code snippet that shows only how to call the XML parsing/processing APIs, the book gives full examples on how to use XML in applications from servlets for presentation to B2B applications for data collaboration between companies.
The book was well written and easy to follow. The author doesn't waste time reiterating the same things over and over. Links for more information on each subject are given in the text.

If you are looking to implement an XML solution in Java, this book will be a great help along the way.


Java and XML Review,  August 17 2000
Submitted by Joseph Dever   [Respond | View]

Excellent book. The topic is covered logically with a clear focus on XML's relation to Java. The author's writing style is outstanding. He can really turn a phrase! And after 350 pages, no errors! That doesn't happen often.


Java and XML Review,  July 27 2000
Submitted by Jon Baerd   [Respond | View]

This is the most current book available on XML. Not only does it cover all the stuff I was looking for (including XML Schema), it covers the latest version of the specifications (many as late as April!). I found SAX 2.0 (the final release, even) and the latest XML Schema, both of which I am using at my company, and needed up-to-date support. The book is even more accurate than some of my favorite web page resources!It also covers JDOM, something the author wrote, which makes my life so much easier - I had to use DOM before, and JDOM is much simpler. It also compares JDOM and DOM in the code samples (side by side) so I got to see exactly where the differences were. Finally, a hidden gem - this book covered RSS! Something I hardly knew about, we are now doing our entire portal site in RSS thanks to "Java and XML". Pick it up - more in here than I even knew was useful, plus all the examples work (! ) and are not silly Hello World things.


Java and XML Review,  July 09 2000
Submitted by Maik Schmidt   [Respond | View]

This is one of the best books I have read in the past three years.
I have learned a lot about XML and useful tools for manipulating it (not only java).
Maybe it would be a good idea to release one or two similar titles (e.g., perl and xml?).
The minor problem again: the cover looks like a sine curve.


Java and XML Review,  June 30 2000
Submitted by Eric Lind   [Respond | View]

This is a great book! It thoroughly covers the basics of XML and makes it accessible to the common man through Java (ok, common programmer, my mom still won't be hacking XML any time soon). I've gained a huge amount of insight from this book and I'm lusting for a new project to try out what I've learned.

A minor gripe - the binding seems to be slowly detaching itself. The "packets" (I'm not sure of the correct term) of paper are separating and the covers are curling outwards. This hasn't happened with any of my other O'Reilly books. So far, that's the only thing I have to complain about, and I'm 3/4 of the way through.


Java and XML Review,  June 07 2000
Submitted by Praveen Kumar   [Respond | View]

A must read book for web programmers. Book takes you through the applicability of xml in web development in nice way. Things have been presented in very simple words. Examples are very useful.

See larger cover