RE: New XML book

Subject: RE: New XML book
From: Nicholas Roberts <Nicholas@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 17:40:01 +0100
Well since Amazon has a monopoly on distributing Internet books how long
before they start selling or renting bits instead of flattened fibre
impressed with ink.

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Elliotte Rusty Harold [SMTP:elharo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
	Sent:	29 July 1998 16:33
	To:	elharo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
	Subject:	New XML book

	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	all the XSL material will be out of date within the next month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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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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