xml-dev - New XML book

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@sunsite.unc.edu>]

I'd like to announce the publication of my latest book "XML: Extensible
Markup Language" from IDG Books. (ISBN 0-764-53199-9) This book is an
introduction
to XML for HTML developers.It shows you how to write documents
in XML and how to use XSL style sheets to convert those
documents into HTML so legacy browsers can read them. You`ll
also learn how to use DTDs to describe and validate documents.

This book is the first one to look at XML not from the
perspective of a software developer but rather that of a web
page author. It doesn`t spend a lot of pages talking about BNF
grammars or parsing element trees. Instead it shows you how you
can use XML and existing tools today to more efficiently and
productively produce powerful web sites. Fortunately XML has a
decidedly unsteep learning curve, much like HTML (and unlike
SGML). As you learn a little you can do a little. As you learn a
little more, you can do a little more.

This book is aimed squarely at web site developers. I assume
that you want to use XML to produce web sites that are difficult
to impossible to create with raw HTML. You'll be amazed to
discover that in conjunction with XSL style sheets and a few
free tools, XML lets you do things that previously required
either custom software costing hundreds to thousands of dollars
per developer or extensive knowledge of programming languages
like Perl. None of the software in this book will cost you more
than a few minutes of download time. None of the tricks require
any programming beyond the most basic cut and paste JavaScript.

Now the down side: the dynamics of dead tree publishing are such that much
of this book was written about six months ago.  At the time I decided to
use XSL rather heavily. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. Almost
all the XSL material will be out of date within the next month if it isn't
already.  I'll be working on updates to be posted on the Cafe con Leche web
site at http://sunsite.unc.edu/xml/ next month.

This is my fifth computer book, and I've yet to write one that managed to
be completely in sync with the technology it described for more than a week
after the date of publication, so this may be an unavoidable problem.
Nonetheless, I think there's still a lot of useful information in this
book, particularly for anyone who's considering using XML as a back end for
web sites.

"XML: Extensible Markup Language" is available now from amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764531999/cafeaulaitA/> and
Computer Literacy
<http://www.clbooks.com/sqlnut/SP/search/gtsumt?isbn=0764531999>, and soon
from bookstores everywhere. I'll be particularly interested to hear what
this audience thinks of it, and how you think it might be imprloved in
future editions.

Table of Contents

	Preface

	Part 1: XML Basics

	 - Chapter 1 Introducing XML
	 - Chapter 2 Beginning XML
	 - Chapter 3 Formalizing XML
	 - Chapter 4 XSL

	Part II: DTDs

	 - Chapter 5 Using DTDs in XML Documents
	 - Chapter 6 Assembling Documents from Multiple Data Sources
	 - Chapter 7 Describing Elements with Attributes

	Part III: The Bleeding Edge

	 -  Chapter 8 International Text
	 -  Chapter 9 XLL

	Part IV: XML Applications

	 -  Chapter 10 CDF
	 -  Chapter 11 Genealogy

	Appendixes

	 -  XML QuickRef
	 -  Appendix A International Character Sets
	 -  Appendix B XML Glossary
	 -  Appendix C About the CD
	 -  Appendix D Additional Resources


+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@sunsite.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|        XML: Extensible Markup Language (IDG Books 1998)            |
|   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764531999/cafeaulaitA/   |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://sunsite.unc.edu/javafaq/ |
|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://sunsite.unc.edu/xml/     |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+



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