|
The Book of SAX: The Simple API for XML
 |
Author: Michael A. Bodie, W. Scott Means
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1886411778
Publisher: No Starch Press (15 June, 2002)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 754,024
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 out of 5
|
Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
Good Intro into SAX
This book takes a single aspect of xml technology, SAX, and gives it a rather comprehensive coverage. The first portion of the book is a tutorial on Java programming for SAX. It helps the reader to understand the conceptual differences between processing xml using SAX as opposed to the DOM. A small application is developed in an iterative fashion to illustrate the programming issues with SAX. Some guidelines are given along the way to direct the reader in developing robust code. The examples are based in SAX 2.0. A chapter is devoted converting SAX 1.0 applications to SAX 2.0 Chapters 10 and 11 are devoted to the SAX 2.0 and SAX 1.0 APIs respectively. In these references, a real convenience is that the class names are printed on the page edge to form a thumb index. Each class or interface has a brief description of its use, the Visual Basic Equivalent, the Constructors, and Methods with coding examples and descriptions. Since xml is increasing in importance to Java programmers, this book can be a very useful tool. However, it would be helpful if the authors gave updated information on the book web site about using the examples with Xerces 2.0 and Java 1.4. Technology moves on.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Quite Helpful
As a Java developer just getting my feet wet with SAX, I find The Book of SAX to be quite helpful and understandable. While I am not exactly a novice, I found this book to be very readable, instructive, and to comment on some other reviews I saw, original. It is difficult to find any programming text that does not read like an translated VCR manual - however, in this case, SAX is presented fluidly and intelligently. Additionally, the sample code was practical and well-written. I was able to use many examples almost verbatim in completing one of my own projects. I highly recommend. And I just bought another copy for a friend.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Is it worth the money?
I (marginally) do not feel ripped off. The first 9 chapters (62 pages) offer an accurate and concise intro to SAX -- the 3-star rating is for these pages... content could be improved. The API reference material (pages 63-284) is nearly worthless as content. I wish authors would stop putting detailed API documentation on books like this. For a few bucks, it's not a bad buy.
|
