Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML (Effective software development) (Paperback)

Learning the fundamentals of XML might take a programmer a week. Learning how to use XML effectively might take a lifetime. While many books have been written that teach developers how to use the basic syntax of XML, this is the first one that really focuses on how to use XML well. This book is not a tutorial. It is not going to teach you what a tag is or how to write a DTD (Document Type Definition). Instead it's going to tell you when, why, where, and how to use such tools effectively (and equally important when not to use them).Since XML has become a fundamental underpinning of new software systems, it becomes important to ask new questions, not just what XML is, but how does one use it effectively? Which techniques work and which don't? Perhaps most importantly, which techniques appear to work at first but fail to scale as systems are further developed? This book answers these questions. It is not enough to write programs that compile and produce the expected results. It is important to write code that is extensible, legible, and maintainable. XML can be used to produce robust, extensible, maintainable systems.

Praise for Effective XML

“This is an excellent collection of XML best practices: essential reading for any developer using XML. This book will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your XML applications remain practical and interoperable for as long as possible.”

“A collection of useful advice about XML and related technologies. Well worth reading both before, during, and after XML application development.”

“A book on many best practices for XML that we have been eagerly waiting for.”

“The fifty easy-to-read items cover many aspects of XML, ranging from how to use markup effectively to what schema language is best for what task. Sometimes controversial, but always relevant, Elliotte Rusty Harold’s book provides best practices for working with XML that every user and implementer of XML should be aware of.”

“Effective XML is an excellent book with perfect timing. Finally, an XML book everyone needs to read! Effective XML is a fount of XML best practices and solid advice. Whether you read Effective XML cover to cover or randomly one section at a time, its clear writing and insightful recommendations enlighten, entertain, educate, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of even the most expert XML developer. I’ll tell you what I tell all my coworkers and customers: You need this book.”

“This book provides great insight for all developers who write XML software, regardless of whether the software is a trivial application-specific XML processor or a fullblown W3C XML Schema Language validator. Mr. Harold covers everything from a very important high-level terminology discussion to details about parsed XML nodes. The well-researched comparisons of currently available XML-related software products, as well as the key criteria for selecting between XML technologies, exemplify the thoroughness of this book.”

If you want to become a more effective XML developer, you need this book. You will learn which tools to use when in order to write legible, extensible, maintainable and robust XML code.

Elliotte Rusty Harold provides you with 50 practical rules of thumb based on real-world examples and best practices. His engaging writing style is easy to understand and illustrates how you can save development time while improving your XML code. Learn to write XML that is easy to edit, simple to process, and is fully interoperable with other applications and code. Understand how to design and document XML vocabularies so they are both descriptive and extensible. After reading this book, you'll be ready to choose the best tools and APIs for both large-scale and small-scale processing jobs. Elliotte provides you with essential information on building services such as verification, compression, authentication, caching, and content management.

If you want to design, deploy, or build better systems that utilize XML—then buy this book and get going!