A lot of fluff, not much substance
For me the best part of this book was Appendix A, entitled "XML Language Basics". This should have been the first chapter in the book. But by the time I got to it, I was pretty fed up with reading about "emergent behavior" and other buzz phrases. I did get a bit of a sense of what various acronyms mean, such as SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, J2EE and so on, but the ratio of fluff to substance was too high for my taste.
Picture Perfect
If one can't manage to complete a book in a week, then it is not a book. It is a reference that you occasionally use. XML, Web Services, and the Data Revolution by Frank P. Coyle definitely comes under my 'book' category. If one wants to learn what XML and Web Services are in a week, this is a book to read. Lot of information yet concise presentation accomplished with self explanatory pictures depicting various XML technologies.
Distributed Data: Past, Present and Future
There are about 230 pages of actual content that provide a high-level tour of what the author calls the "data revolution." There is a crisp and concise overview of the XML technology family, along with some examples of XML in use. There is broad yet concise description of SOAP and Web Services. Common implementations like .Net, J2EE and other vendor implementations are discussed along with some of the issues in the industry. XML Security is discussed in enough detail to give you a good grasp of the issues. The book wraps up with some ideas about where this technology could take us.The best thing about this book is that it shows how XML and Web Services overcome many of the problems that plagued RPCs, DCOM, CORBA and RMI in a way understandable by anyone.
This book is a quick read, in the concise, bulleted, margin-annotated style of Object-oriented Technology: A Manager's Guide. There are lots of really excellent visuals. This book will not help you actually write code or implement Web Services -- it is good for a semi-technical reader, or a technical reader who wants a better grasp of the big picture. Highly recommended.
Not for technical people, but for bla bla bla bosses.
I bought this book based on the reviews and I made a mistake.
This book doesn't give the technical details I wanted.
If you are one of those bosses who doesn't get into details and just want to know the jargon so you can look technical when you are in meetings with more incompetent people, this is your book.
Excellent reading, straight-forward, great visuals
Mr. Coyle has done an excellent job in demystiying XML and Web Services. He describes the technical details in a fashion that makes it easy to understand, and comprehend on the first read. His visual examples help the reader see the network, and communication paths that takes place between XML, SOAP, and WSDL. I consider myself semi-technical, and I felt that I had a much better grasp of these concepts, and the possibilities of applying this technology after reading his book. Highly recommended.
(8 reviews)
