Strategic XML by Scott Means (Sams)

[Johannes de Jong]

The author attempts to present an eagles eye view of some business problems and how XML can make a difference. The first part gives a good introduction (again from 10000 feet high) of various XML technologies. The second part describes how XML fits in various business "zones". As I tried to navigate my way through the various zones, I found that there is a lot of "boilerplate material" repeated in more than one zone. Of course, by the end (p228) the author emphasizes on us to "Collapse Duplicate Material". Needless to confess I skipped some chapters.
The third part gets a little more into the actual XML application. While the author does justice to some of the applications, some applications end abruptly. (Being part of javaranch.com...nah!!! and) lacking sufficient knowledge about Microsoft Technologies, I had to skip Chapter 15 and realized later that a lot of the SOAP technology is carried over to Chapter 16. So I wasn't able to follow them completely. I really enjoyed Chapter 18 till the end when the author suddenly realized that XSL-FO should be covered in another book.
Overall, I think Part I does a very good job of introducing the technology. Part II can be skipped, if you agree that XML Centric applications are the future. Part III analyses interesting problems, but is a little in comprehensive. Also, sound knowledge of XML and related technologies seems to be a pre-requisite. Only part III of the book is the relavent.
(Madhav Lakkapragada, November 2001)
More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk
More info at FatBrain.com

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

After two months still the Errata pages of the web site http://www.strategicxml.com says that NO Errata has been reported.
Does anyone else send Errata to the publishers/authors?
To an earlier errata message, I got a mail from the author that he was travelling and will update the website next week, which so far never came by. Ofcourse I should also mention that he asked me to submit a review on Amazon, which I din't due to fear of Copyright issues.
I feel that I wasted my time...
- satya
ps:
Okay One and half Month, to be honest. Initially I only saw November and thought two months...sorry!
- satya
[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Madhav Lakkapragada ]