ANNOUNCE: XML in a Nutshell

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

I'm pleased to announce the official release of XML in a Nutshell by W.
Scott Means and Elliotte Rusty Harold (i.e. me).

<http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/xian/>

This is a book a lot of developers have wanted for a long time now. Over
a year before the contract was signed, readers were showing up at the
O'Reilly booth at Internet World asking when XML in a Nutshell was going
to be released. There were a few sputters and starts along the way, and
as with all such books multiple deadlines were missed; but I'm pleased
to announce that XML in a Nutshell is now available at bookstores
everywhere. I think you'll like it.

One of my favorite comments about The XML Bible came from a reader in
Norwich England who wrote, "It would seem to me that if you asked the
author to write 10,000 words about the colour blue, he would be able to
do it without breaking into a sweat." You know, I probably could write
10,000 words about blue, but I can write short books too, and XML in a
Nutshell is the book that proves it. I'd estimate that it covers over
twice the material that the XML Bible does in less than half the space
and at just about half the price. In fact, XML in a Nutshell even weighs
less than half what the XML Bible weighs, so not only will it not break
your budget; it won't break your back either. (Whether I can write this
concisely without the able aid of my coauthor W. Scott Means is still an
open question.) I still like the XML Bible. I think it's a good book,
but even I have to admit that I think twice before packing it in my
carry-on luggage.

XML in a Nutshell, is a complete introduction to the state of the art in
XML as of early 2001 including well-formedness, DTDs, namespaces,
XLinks, XPointers, XPath, XHTML, XSLT, XSL-FO, SAX2, DOM2, Unicode, and
more. For those readers who've already learned everything you need to
know about XML, (which probably includes most members of this list :-) )
I know of no better reference to remind you of the things you've
forgotten. Part IV contains detailed references for XML, XSLT, SAX2,
DOM2, XPath, and Unicode; all carefully designed to facilitate fast
look-up when you just can't quite remember the name of that XSLT element
or the exact signature of that SAX method. Before Scott and I wrote this
book, I wasted way too much time searching the specifications of XML,
XSLT, DOM and more for little details like the proper namespace for SVG.
Now I just flip open XML in a Nutshell, and the answers I need are right
there. We wrote the reference work I always wanted to have.

Chapter 9, XPath, is online at
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xmlnut/chapter/ch09.html> The source
code from the book is available at
<http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/xian/examples/index.html> If I've
succeeded in piqueing your interest, you should be able to find XML in a
Nutshell at almost any bookstore that carries computer books including
the online bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, FatBrain and Borders. If
you need to special order it, the ISBN number is 0-596-00058-8. It's
$29.95, published by O'Reilly, and written by Elliotte Rusty Harold and
W. Scott Means.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|                  The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999)                   |
|              http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/               |
|   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/   |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ |
|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/     |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+