Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 08:43:25 -0400 From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@METALAB.UNC.EDU> To: XML-L@listserv.heanet.ie Subject: XML Bible/2nd Edition of XML:Extensible Markup Language
I'm pleased to announce the release of The XML Bible, my latest book and one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date books available about writing Web pages with XML (and a few other topics too). The XML Bible is the second edition (in everything but name) of my previous best-seller, XML: Extensible Markup Language. However, topping out at over 1000 pages (vs. 400 for the previous book) there's more new material here than old. And all the older material has been substantially revised, rewritten, and expanded based on both reader comments and my own growing understanding of XML over the last year. The XML Bible costs $10 more than XML: Extensible Markup Language ($49.99 vs. $39.99) but for that $10 you get over two and a half times as much stuff, so I think it's a pretty good value. :-)
The XML Bible is also up to date with all XML specifications as of July 1, 1999. Unfortunately several specifications for XSL, XLinks, and XPointers were revised July 9, 1999 just as the book was going to the printers. :-( I've posted revised versions of all affected chapters online at Cafe con Leche <http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/updates/> and plan to continue doing so as the various specifications grow and evolve toward their final incarnations. Today I'm working on revising those chapters once more to fit the August release of XSLT and XPath.
The XML Bible should be available now at a bookstore near you including amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764532367/cafeaulaitA/
It's $49.99, ISBN 0-7645-3236-7, published by IDG Books, and written by me, Elliotte Rusty Harold. You can read more about it on my XML Bible page at
http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/
or read on for a few more details.
The XML Bible is a comprehensive introduction to XML for Web page design. It shows you how to write XML documents, validate them with DTDs, design CSS and XSL style sheets for those documents, convert them to HTML, and publish them on Web servers for the world to read. You'll also learn how to use XML technologies like RDF, XLinks, XHTML, and namespaces to add structure and organization to your document collections. And finally, you'll learn about the many uses of XML beyond the Web site, including genealogy, subscription services, mathematics, vector graphics, and more.
Unlike most other XML books on the market, The XML Bible covers XML not from the perspective of a software developer but rather that of a Web page author. It doesn't spend a lot of pages talking about BNF grammars or parsing element trees. Instead it shows you how you can use XML and existing tools today to more efficiently and productively produce attractive, exciting, easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain Web sites that will keep your readers coming back for more.
This book is aimed squarely at Web site developers. I assume you want to use XML to produce Web sites that are difficult to impossible to create with raw HTML. You'll be amazed to discover that in conjunction with style sheets and a few free tools, XML lets you do things that previously required either custom software costing hundreds to thousands of dollars per developer or extensive knowledge of programming languages like Perl. None of the software in this book will cost you more than a few minutes of download time. None of the tricks require any programming.
The XML Bible should be available now at a bookstore near you including amazon.com <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764532367/cafeaulaitA/>. It's $49.99, ISBN 0-7645-3236-7, published by IDG Books, and written by me, Elliotte Rusty Harold. You can read more about it on my XML Bible page at <http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/>
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer | +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | Java I/O (O'Reilly & Associates, 1999) | | http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/books/javaio/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1565924851/cafeaulaitA/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+