A practical and concise book that teaches XML from the ground up. This tutorial style presents various XML methodologies and techniques in an easy to understand way, building a basis for further exploration.

XML is essentially an enabling technology, dry and boring on its own. As a result, most books on the market are dry, and academic in nature teaching theory rather than practice. This book actually teaches practical, real-world applications of XML, using the very latest version of PHP (PHP 5) as the base language.

No Nonsense XML Web Development with PHP explains how XML can be put to use in real-world projects. The book also covers buzz topics such as RSS and Web Services.

Could have been better
This book has a few shortcomings. The author goes about building a toy CMS that stores various types of content types. One of the content types is an article. A big disappointment is that he uses a CDATA section to encapsulate the content of an article - it simply contains XHTML tags. I was quite disappointed when I saw this because it cheapened the book and gave it less technical depth. A more suitable example would have been to use simplified Docbook or even come up with a simple article DTD consisting of custom element tags. Then show by example XML/PHP/XSLT on that DTD. That would have been way more useful.

For PHP developers, this book doesn’t use much of it until well into the middle chapters. There are quick tutorials on DTDs, RSS, and SimpleXML that are good. The chapter on client side Javascript should have been removed (wasn’t this book about PHP?). The templating framework is backwards - the author uses php includes to build out the page. He should have used XSLT to create a proper XHTML transformation instead.

The writing is generally quite good and the reading light. You can go sit outside on the porch without a computer and follow it quite nicely. The organization and topic coverage is good also. I would have liked to see more technical depth and thought put into it, rather than what appeared to be a quick surface introduction. For example, show more how you can pass variables between PHP and XSLT as well as how to cache the pages. The admin panel should also take into consideration that to see 1000 articles on one full page is silly - use a pager.

Because the author used too many shortcuts to write this book, I gave it an average rating. If you are looking for a basic book on XML/PHP development, this is a good start. For those more experienced, I’m afraid this won’t suit your experience level and would be left looking for more.

Could have been better
This book has a few shortcomings. The author goes about building a toy CMS that stores various content types. One of the content types is an article. A big disappointment is that he uses a CDATA section to encapsulate the content of an article - it simply contains XHTML tags. I was quite disappointed when I saw this because it cheapened the book and gave it less technical depth. A more suitable example would have been to use simplified Docbook or even come up with a simple article DTD consisting of custom element tags. Then show by example XML/PHP/XSLT on that DTD. That would have been way more useful.

For PHP developers, this book doesn’t use much of it until well into the middle chapters. There are quick tutorials on DTDs, RSS, and SimpleXML that are good. The chapter on client side Javascript should have been removed (wasn’t this book about PHP?). The templating framework is backwards - the author uses php includes to build out the page. He should have used XSLT to create a proper XHTML transformation instead.

The writing is generally quite good and the reading light. You can go sit outside on the porch without a computer and follow it quite nicely. The organization and topic coverage is good also. I would have liked to see more technical depth and thought put into it, rather than what appeared to be a quick surface introduction. For example, show more how you can pass variables between PHP and XSLT as well as how to cache the pages. The admin panel should also take into consideration that to see 1000 articles on one full page is silly - use a pager.

Because the author used too many shortcuts to write this book, I gave it an average rating. If you are looking for a basic book on XML/PHP development, this is a good start. For those more experienced, I’m afraid this won’t suit your experience level and would be left looking for more.

Is XML as useful as claimed?
This book is helpful and easy to understand and follow, however, the more I read about XML the less useful it seems to be. If I knew then what I know now I probably wouldn’t bother learning about XML because I work with web design and nothing else. I am familiar with PHP and MYSQL so I can’t really find a purpose for XML at this time. The book is great but the technology is not as useful as I thought it would be.

I may change my mind in the future but for now XML is on the back burner and PHP/MYSQL is my current focus.

My point in this review is to let others know that if you already know PHP and MYSQL and only work on the web then you may find learning XML redundant or maybe even useless. I’m sure it would look great on a resume though.

Ok but not great
This is my revised and rewritten review of this book.



The first review dated Feb 19 was just two stars, titled `Disjointed and Superficial’, and read...



I bought Myer’s book to help me move from XHTML to XML and to handle data with PHP which does not fit well in a relational database / SQL. I am not interested in writing a CMS, and therefore tried to skim or skip those parts. Unfortunately, some key points are buried in the CMS discussion. Subjects (ie: Namespace) seem to be mentioned or touched on in several places without doing a thorough job at any one point or multiple points. The subjects which are discussed, are not discussed in depth. And why is Ralph Waldo Emmerson given ink on page 59, and then included in the index??? I found myself working a little too hard to just get the important points.



I know Myer tried very hard to write a good book, and it is not a ’really bad’ book. On a positive note: The editing error rate seems to be low as compared to a lot of first edition, first printing computer books. There is some good material in it, but this book does not work well for me. I have at least temporarily given up on this book a little short of the half way point. Since finding a really good XML book seems harder than it should be, I may come back to this one, and if so, I’ll update this opinion.



Warning: [3 opinions given here appear to be by paid reviewers. ie: 9/14/05, 10/7/05, and 11/8/05. I now suspect some of the others are personal friends of the author. Hint: Check out the person writing the review before actually reading it. Look for how many opinions he/she writes and how many stars. I distrust all high opinions in the first few months of publication, all high opinions by people who have only written a couple of opinions, and all high opinions from people who only write high opinions. Bottom Line: Distrust all high opinions except those from people who have established some evidence of independence by posting negative as well as positive opinions about other books. Thanks for the lack of honesty Tommy &/or Sitepoint &/or big A. I would have given 3 stars if there were not so many false ones posted here. (my opinion, 2 cma).]



Now, having finished Myer’s book (except for most of the CMS stuff), I have changed it to 3 stars and concluded ....



There are about an equal number of pros and cons. It is somewhat light and easy to read, and the editing error rate is good. It is kind of a quick survey of subjects which Myer thinks are important. I did like chapters 7 & 9 (Manipulating XML with PHP, & XML and Web Services).



On the con side: The Appendix listing of PHP functions / methods is not complete and no examples are given. Where he discusses ways to extract XML from a database, two different sources (tables) are used, so the results are not comparable. I wish he had spent more ink on handling XML with PHP and less on client side technologies which are not well supported yet. I found the example listings a little short and lacking some additional code which would have helped follow what was supposed to happen. More output/results listings would also have helped.



The book is not particularly complete, and could not be used as a reference, but it may be ok (not great) as an overview or introduction. A better intro book may be `Beginning XML, 3rd Edition’ by David Hunter etc., although that is a much bigger book.



Lastly, do not trust any high star rating review unless the source has proven his/her impartiality by posting positive as well as not so positive reviews of other books. Too many opinions of this book do not pass that simple test. The basic problem is determining who to believe and which postings to suspect are covertly trying to sell books because they have a vested interest or undisclosed motive.

Ok but not great
This is my revised and rewritten review of this book.

The first review dated Feb 19 was just two stars, titled `Disjointed and Superficial’, and read...

I bought Myer’s book to help me move from XHTML to XML and to handle data with PHP which does not fit well in a relational database / SQL. I am not interested in writing a CMS, and therefore tried to skim or skip those parts. Unfortunately, some key points are buried in the CMS discussion. Subjects (ie: Namespace) seem to be mentioned or touched on in several places without doing a thorough job at any one point or multiple points. The subjects which are discussed, are not discussed in depth. And why is Ralph Waldo Emmerson given ink on page 59, and then included in the index??? I found myself working a little too hard to just get the important points.

I know Myer tried very hard to write a good book, and it is not a ’really bad’ book. On a positive note: The editing error rate seems to be low as compared to a lot of first edition, first printing computer books. There is some good material in it, but this book does not work well for me. I have at least temporarily given up on this book a little short of the half way point. Since finding a really good XML book seems harder than it should be, I may come back to this one, and if so, I’ll update this opinion.

Warning: [3 opinions given here appear to be by paid reviewers. ie: 9/14/05, 10/7/05, and 11/8/05. I now suspect some of the others are personal friends of the author. Hint: Check out the person writing the review before actually reading it. Look for how many opinions he/she writes and how many stars. I distrust all high opinions in the first few months of publication, all high opinions by people who have only written a couple of opinions, and all high opinions from people who only write high opinions. Bottom Line: Distrust all high opinions except those from people who have established some evidence of independence by posting negative as well as positive opinions about other books. Thanks for the lack of honesty Tommy &/or Sitepoint &/or big A. I would have given 3 stars if there were not so many false ones posted here. (my opinion, 2 cma).]

Now, having finished Myer’s book (except for most of the CMS stuff), I have changed it to 3 stars and concluded ....

There are about an equal number of pros and cons. It is somewhat light and easy to read, and the editing error rate is good. It is kind of a quick survey of subjects which Myer thinks are important. I did like chapters 7 & 9 (Manipulating XML with PHP, & XML and Web Services).

On the con side: The Appendix listing of PHP functions / methods is not complete and no examples are given. Where he discusses ways to extract XML from a database, two different sources (tables) are used, so the results are not comparable. I wish he had spent more ink on handling XML with PHP and less on client side technologies which are not well supported yet. I found the example listings a little short and lacking some additional code which would have helped follow what was supposed to happen. More output/results listings would also have helped.

The book is not particularly complete, and could not be used as a reference, but it may be ok (not great) as an overview or introduction. A better intro book may be `Beginning XML, 3rd Edition’ by David Hunter etc., although that is a much bigger book.

Lastly, do not trust any high star rating review unless the source has proven his/her impartiality by posting positive as well as not so positive reviews of other books. Too many opinions of this book do not pass that simple test. The basic problem is determining who to believe and which postings to suspect are covertly trying to sell books because they have a vested interest or undisclosed motive.

Disjointed, Convoluted, Inadequate.
I bought Myer’s book to help me move from XHTML to XML and to handle data with PHP which does not fit well in a relational database / SQL. I am not interested in writing a CMS, and therefore tried to skim or skip those parts. Unfortunately, some key points are buried in the CMS discussion. Subjects (ie: Namespace & DTD) seem to be mentioned or touched on in several places without doing a thorough job at any one point or multiple points. I found myself working too hard to just get the important points.

I know Myer tried very hard to write a good book, and it is not a `really bad’ book. On a positive note: The editing error rate seems to be low as compared to a lot of first edition, first printing computer books. But this book does not work well for me. I have at least temporarily given up on this book a little short of the half way point. Since finding a really good XML book seems harder than it should be, I may come back to this one, and if so, I’ll update this opinion.

Warning: [3 opinions given here appear to be by paid reviewers. ie: 9/14/05, 10/7/05, and 11/8/05. I now suspect some of the others are personal friends of the author. Hint: Check out the person writing the review before actually reading it. Look for how many opinions he/she writes and how many stars. I distrust all high opinions in the first few months of publication, all high opinions by people who have only written a couple of opinions, and all high opinions from people who only write high opinions. Thanks for the lack of honesty Tommy &/or Sitepoint &/or big A. (my opinion, 2 cma).]

Don’t let the PHP in the title fool you.
This is a book about XML, all the power and flexability that the language gives you. It just happends to use PHP for the database access. Which means that no matter what language you use, this is a must have reference guide.

Thomas Myer has managed to put into writing one of the very best XML primers out there. It starts so gently, dealing with the familiar (HTML), and steps you through some basic examples. By the end of chapter 2 you are doing transforms. Before you close out Chapter 6 you will have worked with XPath Queries. These are no small concepts, but I never felt overwhelmed or lost. Mainly due to the precise and comprehensive writing, but the familiar examples (for web developers they are very familiar) helped keep me on some familiar ground.

If you are using XML over the web (in any language), I urge you to pick this one up. It wil be time very well spent.

Nice addition for your basic HTML books....
After reading this book, I was able to start my own (...)web design business, Stormfront Productions. SFP has grown considerably over the last year, solely based on creating quality web sites (which was learned from this book). It focuses on XML and PHP mostly, which is what I now use for 90% of my sites. I recommend it to all of our clients looking to expand their web site’s functionality.

A PRACTICAL AND NO NONSENCE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR SURE!
Do you want to teach yourself XML the easy way? Well, you’re in luck! Author Thomas Myer, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that introduces readers to a large part of the XML world, and to walk them, step by step, through the creation of an XML-powered Website.

Myer begins by introducing XML. Next, the author introduces you to the XML family, namely XHTML, XML Namespaces, and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). Then, he covers DTDs for consistency. The author continues by talking about XSLT and how to use it to transform XML for display in a browser. In addition, the author next covers XSLT in detail. He also shows you how to manipulate XML with client-side tools. Next, the author tackles the server side, specifically addressing the question of PHP 5 as he explores the differences between SAX, DOM, and SimpleXML function libraries for working with XML. Then, he delves into the specifics of the different varieties of RSS that are available, and discusses news aggregators, the parsing of feeds with PHP, and more. The author continues by looking at XML and Web Services. Finally, he considers XML and databases.

With the preceding in mind, the author has done an excellent job of presenting the fascinating topic of XML. So, with any luck, XML will serve you well for some time to come!

Review from Peter MacIntyre
Thomas Myer has his hands full in his book called "XML Web Development with PHP". This is a large and potentially complex topic, but the author does an excellent job in covering the basic concepts in the early chapters. Then he does an equally great job in the details of combining XML concepts with the PHP Language.

Mr. Myer takes a lighthearted approach to his authorship style and that lends itself to easy reading and therefore better understanding of the subject at hand. The occasional tongue-in-cheek comment intermixed with the text also helps alleviate some of the potential boredom with such a technical subject.

Eventually the author gets into the subject of using XML within the PHP environment. Covering the three available approaches (SAX, DOM, and SimpleXML) is done well and with clear, small, and easy-to-handle examples. I was impressed with the book overall, and since I may be dealing with both XML and PHP in the near future I will keep this book close at hand.

Could have been more practically focused
The outline for this book needed some review. The ordering of topics seems a little odd to me. The first serious chapters of the book start with XSLT, which is universally considered to be one of the hardest technologies in the XML world to learn.

In fact, it isn’t until chapter 7 that you see PHP in the book at all. At which point the author goes over the SAX and DOM models of XML reading and writing. Which, in my mind, would have been the more traditional place to start the book. After a brief explanation of XML and it’s usefulness.

Out of the 360 pages of the book only 100 of the non-appendix pages cover PHP. They do it well, but they have to do it at lightning speed since the majority of the book covers XSLT and DHTML.

That being said, there is good coverage of XML work in PHP in this book. And if you are having troubles with PHP and XML then there will be answers here for you.

The writing is good. Which brings up the whole experience by a notch.

Straight to the point - best way to learn XML for the Web!
If you’re like me and learn by DOING, this is the book for you. In each section, the author gets straight to the point he is making and then shows you how to do it, step by step. You start from scratch and end up with a working XML content management system and a head full of knowledge. He doesn’t elaborate on all the open ended possiblities till your head hurts - he just shows you how to do it in 260 pages (exluding Appendices). Written in plain clear jargon-free English, and completely free of silly examples. This is simply the best book I’ve read on this topic.

Fantastic XML Guide!!
I’ve done a lot of reviews for computer reference books out there, and I am continually impressed by the sitepoint line of web development books. I have yet to find a book by sitepoint that I didn’t find immediately useful or get something out of, and ’No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP’ keeps the tradition of great books going. The first thing that I would like to state is that while ’PHP’ is on the cover of this text, this is a little misleading. PHP is the chosen server-side language used in examples throughout, but this book is not just for PHP developers. Having primarily worked in the ASP/ASP.NET world, I wasn’t sure if this book would be very useful with my track record and if there is any complaint to be made, it’s that I think the PHP part should have been dropped, as this will no doubt cause an audience that would have found this book useful to shy away and pick up a related text without the PHP note in the title.

As for the book itself, the author begins with a history of XML and some basic examples of its usefulness in the everyday world (why it’s here to stay). Not only providing the basics and history of XML, the author goes on to talk about what DTDs/schemas are used for and how XSLT can be used to turn an XML document into another XML document, an HTML document, etc. How Javascript can be used on the client-side to access and modify XML is discussed, and then PHP is demonstrated in numerous examples to show how real logic can be put in use with XML data. The author also discusses RSS, web services and how to incorporate XML data and a database.

All in all, this is great book for any individual to learn more about how to use XML in your web site/application. More a teaching tool than a reference, this book follows up on the great history of other sitepoint books and is a highly recommended resource for any web professional that wants to learn more about XML and how it has benefited everyone (and I do mean everyone since XML is so highly integrated with the Internet as a whole). PHP and MySQL users will get an added bonus since this is the focus environment of the book, but as stated right off the bat, you do not have to be an open-source developer to find this text highly useful.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED