- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (19 Mar 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0136422993
- ISBN-13: 978-0136422990
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 17.8 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
2,757,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #33 in Books > Computers & Internet > Computer Science > Programming > Languages > XML > XML & Databases
- #70 in Books > Computers & Internet > Computer Science > Databases > XML & Databases
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This book is perfect for anyone ready to build sophisticated XML or SGML DTDs that solve complex, real-world document systems challenges. In Structuring DTD Documents, David Megginson shares his extensive experience and wisdom about quality structured document design and DTD development. Learn proven techniques for building DTDs that are easier to learn, use, and process. Working with five detailed industry-standard models, discover how to: analyze DTDs and adapt them for your specific needs. Understand how to ensure structural compatibility throughout your DTDs. Finally, learn how to use the brand-new Architectural Forms standard to simplify many of the most complex DTD problems.
From the Back Cover
64229-8
Real XML help for webmasters, developers, and publishing professionals!
Structuring XML Documents is the perfect book for you, if...
- You're tired of toy exercises and are ready to build XML/SGML DTDs for real-world document systems .
- You need to write DTDs that work both for your authors and for your computer specialists.
- You're starting with XML and want to make the most of it.
- You're migrating from SGML to XML - or thinking about it.
In this book, David Megginson shares his extensive expertise in quality structured document design and DTD development. Starting with five detailed industry-standard models, learn how to:
- Analyze DTDs and adapt them for your specific needs
- Build DTDs that are easier to learn, use, and process
- Ensure structural compatibility throughout your DTDs
- Use the new Architectural Forms standard to simplify complex DTD problems.
Whether you're a technical writer, documentation project manager, document systems implementor, or consultant, you'll refer to this book constantly.
On the CD-ROM...All these state-of-the-art model DTDs-pre-catalogued for plug-and-play parsing...
- ISO 12083 DTDs
- DocBook 3.0 DTD with documentation
- TEI P3 and TEI-Lite 1.6 DTDs
- MIL-STD-38784 DTD with Official Navy Baseline Tagset Library
- HTML 4.0
Plus...
- Ælfred-a small, fast, DTD-aware Java(tm)-based XML parser, especially suitable for use in Java applets
- SP/NSGMLS parser - source code and Windows binaries, for XML and SGML parsing and validating
- ISO character entity sets - a Web page indexing all the CD's contents, and including links to all the URLs cited in the book-sites where you can find the most up-to-date information on XML and SGML and more.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The first 1/3 defines DTD syntax. This section is horrible unless you already know it. It briefly mentions a topic and regurgitates a definition and then fails to explain the syntax and intricasies. The 2nd 1/3 covers some examples. However, this is done at a very high level. It explains almost nothing about how they work. The last 1/3 is worthwhile and covers some interesting advanced topics. This book is only worth something to someone who is not interested in hands-on XML development. Also, it was confusing how it kept describing SGML-only features and mixing these with the SGML/XML features.
Format:Paperback
This book is great if you are looking on how to design DTDs. For that you need to already know about XML. It is not a "software" book in the sense that it does not have a line of code and it does not explain to you how to "program" XML. I have already read some books about XML and how to program it. I wanted a book which could explain to me how to design a DTD so I could create my own XML application. I found that book! However, before you buy this book, make sure that it really corresponds to what you are looking for.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Adds Theory to Practice in XML Information Design
8 Oct 1999
Format:Paperback
This book is not meant to be a tutorial or a programming guide. All of the programming books in the world could not save you if your DTDs are not well designed. A DTD needs to be both constrained enough to be learnable and usable, and flexible enough to accommodate different and unexpected information structures. This book does a great job of expressing the underlying conceptual issues such as logical units, hierarchical information relationships, and modularity and reusability. Information architects and designers, technical writers and editors, people in the information science field who are studying XML, and anyone who's already learned their way around XML and want to go to a deeper level will find this book valuable. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because I would have liked to see more about how to analyze the inherent data structures in your documents in order to build the best DTDs - but it still gives you enough to chew on in that area.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A definite must for dtd authors
12 Jan 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book delivers exactly what it says it will: the _whole_ gist on the technical aspects of drafting a Document Type Definition and on the theoretical aspects of defining an optimal way of structuring information. The author dominates his subject and his discussion on the fine points of information structuring is clever and challenging.
The only thing that is keeping me from giving it an otherwise well-deserved five-star is the utterly meagre index, a surprising fact in such a book!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
excellent, focussed, convincing
27 July 1998
Format:Paperback
It is said (with some validity) that XML will save the web. In particular, it will make it possible to present data in useful forms, along with tools to manipulate it. This book is specifically about using XML with *documents*, however. SGML is rooted in document production, and XML shows those roots clearly. However, there are many non-document oriented applications of XML, which are outside the scope of this book.
Instead, if you are using XML for document production, or are developing a new document handling system and are considering XML, this book contains many valuable lessons. It presents a number of design principles, in the context of five widely used DTDs: Docbook, CALS, TEI, EPSIG, and HTML.
It is *particularly* enlightening to see the comparisons with HTML. point by point, the author shows convincing DTD design creteria, demonstrates how they affect ease of use and ease of maintenance... and then casually shows just how poor HTML is as an example of! these principals. The other DTDs are not, of course, perfect, but they *do* show design skill and suitability for document use; HTML completely fails to. After reading this analysis, you will be left wondering why you ever thought HTML was "structured" in any way.
The author covers his ground with extreme thoroughness. He makes it very clear where he is going at all times, what he expects you to learn, and what pitfalls arise directly from poor design. The book is well structured, and gives evidence of a single very organized mind, in its construction, even down to the introduction to the last chapter where the author warns that you might want to "stop now and try applying" the techniques covered, before exploring certain more advanced and subtle areas. The consistent quality of delivery (including excellent use of a graphical notation to express measurable complexity of a DTD structure) makes this book a pleasure to read and study, especially when ! contrasted with other titles in the series (Designing XML I! nternet Applications, reviewed elsewhere, uses the same typographic style but manages a poor presentation due to other inconsistencies.)
All in all, if you are actually constructing DTDs for XML documents, this could be the most important book you might ever read on the subject. The author shares his experience very effectively, and makes subtle and advanced concepts seem intuitive.
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