Although no one can complain of a shortage in books with the
�XML� abbreviation in the title, most of those books simply explain what
you can do with XML. The problem with such an approach is that XML�s
amorphous nature (the Author�s own words) allows you to do about
everything - the more important it is to distinguish what you can from
what
you should do � exactly what �XML elements of style� is about. It
doesn�t teach you how to create XML documents � there are number of
books for tha, it teaches you how to create good XML documents, which
makes it special.
It is not a beginning tutorial, however, and the reader is expected to
have some prior basic XML knowledge.
The first part thoroughly covers all advanced features of XML:
character, general and parameter entities, notations, processing
instructions, and in passing demystifies the more arcane aspects of the
XML 1.0 specification, such as white space handling. The next part,
devoted to XML design, concentrates on good practices when creating XML
documents, and carefully warns about the pitfalls you may encounter
using, for example, namespaces or non-validating parsers. A good number
of pages deal with DTD design issues, showing how to create reusable,
manageable, extensible DTDs and how to avoid possible problems.
This book was written in 1999 - two centuries ago in XML time, but it
mysteriously has kept its value. If there is such thing as classics of
XML, then �XML elements of style� is a classic. (Margarita Isayeva - bartender, May 2001)
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