Rating: 
Summary: A Maturing and More Sophisticated XML
Review: ... Harold has put together an advanced overview of ALL
XML. A significant part of the value of this book is in Harold's assessment of the various proposed extensions to XML, like the XML Schema language, or the abovementioned XLink and XQuery. XML is still growing rapidly, and there is a real need for various extensions. But there is also a consequent need for
independent comparative assessments of those extensions. For example, if you have a book devoted to XML Schema, it might not even tell you that there are other competing schema languages. En passant, he gives an unusually clear explanation of the difference between a character set and a character encoding. The former is a mapping of some characters to numbers. The latter is an instantiation of those numbers as an actual numerical storage. Often in other books, you can see the two phrases used interchangeably and imprecisely. By contrast,
throughout this book Harold emphasises a precision of terminology. A priori, if you are into XML, then you need to be precise. I have one minor quibble. He says that multiple XML documents "can be stored in a single file, though this is unusual in practice." He might have added that one of these instances is instructive. If you have a continuously running program that periodically writes to a log file in XML, then during the writing, for efficiency, you would append XML documents to the file. So notice that at all times, the entire file is not an XML document, because there are no enclosing tags.
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Summary: The best XML book I've read
Review: Effective XML is a collection of about 50 tips for working with XML. Although XML seems is simple and easy to use, it's also easy to get wrong. I've often scratched your head and wondered why things like XML Schema, for example, just doesn't feel right. But it wasn't until I read Effective XML that I understood what was really awkward with it.
Because the book is so diverse (an amazing feat considering the small page count), it is hard to single out any specific part as being a reason to read the book. The book doesn't just talk about schemas, the infoset, etc..., it digs down and really explains what is good and bad about the technologies and what the best ways to apply them are. All I can say is that I use XML day in and day out and have learned everything I know by trial an error. I've made many mistakes along the way. I've tried my best to learn from them, but Effective XML was the book that made everything click for me. The best part is that the book went well beyond just helping me see my errors. I've already applied some of the ideas to new work I've done recently and have been able to head off some of the problems I would have encountered.
Effective XML is by far the best XML book I've ever read, and quite possibly the best tech book I've read all year. I might even have to add it to my favorite tech books list. If you work with XML to any significant degree, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: The XML book you should own
Review: Imagine you are given the opportunity to ask one of the leading experts on XML 50 questions. And further imagine that this expert will answer those questions clearly and completely. You can stop imagining because Elliotte Rusty Harold has done exactly that in this book. Whether you are a relative newbie or an experienced XML developer, you will find useful information in this book. Should I use DOM or SAX? What's the right way to encode binary data? When should I use processing instructions? Should I use XML 1.1? Do I really need to parse my documents? This is just a random sample of the questions that Harold answers in this book. Every page contains valuable information. Harold is unusual in that even though he is an expert he still remembers what it is like to not know something. His explanations don't leave any blanks that you need to fill in. There are no jumps from point A to point Z without taking you through the points in between. So who should buy this book? Anyone who has some knowledge of XML who is interested in working with XML the right way. Whether you are developing applications to process or create an XML document or whether you are simply designing an XML document you need to read this book. Once you understand the basics of XML, this book will take you to the next step of being able to work with XML effectively.
Rating:
Summary: The XML book you should own
Review: Imagine you are given the opportunity to ask one of the leading experts on XML 50 questions. And further imagine that this expert will answer those questions clearly and completely. You can stop imagining because Elliotte Rusty Harold has done exactly that in this book. Whether you are a relative newbie or an experienced XML developer, you will find useful information in this book. Should I use DOM or SAX? What's the right way to encode binary data? When should I use processing instructions? Should I use XML 1.1? Do I really need to parse my documents? This is just a random sample of the questions that Harold answers in this book. Every page contains valuable information. Harold is unusual in that even though he is an expert he still remembers what it is like to not know something. His explanations don't leave any blanks that you need to fill in. There are no jumps from point A to point Z without taking you through the points in between. So who should buy this book? Anyone who has some knowledge of XML who is interested in working with XML the right way. Whether you are developing applications to process or create an XML document or whether you are simply designing an XML document you need to read this book. Once you understand the basics of XML, this book will take you to the next step of being able to work with XML effectively.
Rating:
Summary: The 2nd XML book any XML developer should read.
Review: OK, you read your XML Primer. You think you understand DTDs, you did some XML Schemas and even wrote an XSLT. You think you're ready to write an XML app... instead, get Elliotte's "Effective XML" to prepare you for real world XML applications. This book provide's a wealth of knowledge, even if you already developed a number of XML applications and you are at a more senior or architect level. It's well deserving to be part of the "Effective XXX" series.
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Summary: Great gap between book knowledge and effective use...
Review: The flexibility of XML can often mean that there's a gap between using XML and using XML effectively. Elliotte Rusty Harold's book Effective XML - 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML (Addison Wesley) is an excellent way to move towards the latter condition.
Chapter List: Syntax; Structure; Semantics; Implementation; Recommended Reading; Index
There are obviously a large number of books that will teach you the semantics of writing and using XML. But just because you can create an XML file doesn't mean that you've done it well or effectively. Harold's book provides a bridge to being able to create XML files that will be usable in nearly all situations. The book starts out in the introduction with explanations of terms that are often confused (element vs. tag, text vs. character data vs. markup, etc.). Then there are four parts of the book that include a total of 50 tips that will improve the quality of your XML usage. Some tips are pretty basic, like "Include an XML Declaration". Others are more complex like "Verify Documents with XML Digital Signatures". But every one is practical and useful for making sure that your XML is widely useable by all potential applications.
Excellent bridge book to read after you've learned the basics of XML. This is a book that, when taken to heart and used, will cause your coworkers to thank you.
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Summary: A must have for the serious XML practitioner
Review: There are plenty of generic XML books out there, plus a bunch of titles that focus on specific XML applications or XML related topics (SOAP, XSLT, XML Schema etc); what Mr Harold delivered this time is something different, that really stands out from everything else available at the time of this writing. This book is about best practices, patterns and anti-patterns, and about how to use XML correctly and efficiently. As with other titles from the same author, this book is a pleasure to read, clean, informative and well structured. In my opinion a must have for the serious XML practitioner. Be advised this is not a book for beginners, the author takes for granted you already mastered the fundamentals of XML and many related technologies like DTD, Schema or Namespace. In order to really get the best out of it you better have some experience using XML under your belt.
Rating:
Summary: Make room on your bookshelf
Review: This book is targeted towards developers with a good knowledge of XML. While the book is very instructional, it is not a tutorial. Rather, it is a collection of tips for building better XML applications. The subtitle is an apt description, "50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML". The book is divided into four topics with the 50 tips spread among them. Part 1 is based on Syntax, Part 2 is about Structure, Part 3 reflects Semantics, and Part 4 focuses on implementation. Each item (or tip) has a brief explanation followed by a more detailed explanation and examples of the problems and remedies. The book can be read in any order with one exception. The author includes a very nice bit in the Introduction. While in many books this is the part that most people skip or read later; do not succumb to that temptation. The author reviews many of the XML terms that are points of confusion in order to acclimate the reader into the way they will be used in the book. One of the most refreshing parts of the book is way that the author is very upfront about delivering his opinion. For example, Item 3 "Stay with XML 1.0" states, "Everything that you need to know about XML 1.1 can be summed up in two rules.
1.Don't use it.
2.(For experts only) If you speak Mongolian, Yi, ... you can set the version attribute of the XML declaration to 1.1. Otherwise, refer to rule 1."
Afterwards, he delivers a lengthy and well-expressed defense of this position. This book definitely deserves consideration for some shelf space if you work with XML, perhaps along side the "XML Bible" and "Processing XML with Java".
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Summary: A very effective book
Review: This book was a pleasure to read, and very informative. As I'm quoted in the book, "Effective XML is a fount of XML best practices and solid advice." If you've already mastered the basics of XML, and are ready to take your skills to the next level, you should read this book. One of its best features is that you can read it in any order, just like the Effective C++ books that started the series. I find myself mostly looking at particular sections for reference, like Issue 48 (Digital Signatures), but it was also enjoyable to read the book once from cover to cover. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Five Star PLUS, low fat book for the mature developer
Review: This book was extremely pleasant to read. The format of the book (essentially 50 essays related to XML) gave the author the possibility just to talk about the topics he was really interested in, to talk about. There is no stuff in the book, which he also had to say just for the sake of being complete. The claim for this book is, that you already have to know quite a bit, before reading it. Well you have to know something, but knowledge is really not the point here. It is more something like software maturity. So if you are fond of maturity: this is your book. Thanks to the author for that great present to us.
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