This book does not introduce the basics of XML syntax, nor does it explainhow popular APIs and tools work, or provide design patterns or recipes forcoding: there are many other XML books that do an excellent job of that.Instead, this is a book about XML planning and decision making. Everyoneinvolved with an XML project has to make decisions of some kind: whether tosupport XML at all, how to plan and schedule a project, what kind of goals toset, what standards to support, or what technical approaches to take. This bookis about problem solving. It provides detailed solutions to certain specificcommon problems, and it also teaches problem-solving strategies.*Provides a map to navigate through the maze of XML-related standards.*Brings together information that matters to technologists and managers, sothat they can make important strategic and tactical decisions together.*Presents a balanced view of XML, showing both where it does and does notwork.

"XML projects succeed or fail for many reasons other than XML. David’s book goes beyond the angle brackets, giving a lot of information people need to know when planning and implementing an XML project, when choosing XML technologies, and when betting on XML standards."
--Dr. Ron Daniel, Principal, Taxonomy Strategies, former acting chair of the XML Linking working group and member of the RDF working groups

"Most books in this area are either beginners’ guides, in-depth reference works to the foundational standards, or guides to using XML in particular environments or application areas. This book takes a broader approach for non-beginners and describes where XML can be used profitably in the real world. Highly recommended."
--Dr. Marc J. Hadley, Senior Staff Engineer, Web Technologies andStandards division, Sun Microsystems

"Imperfect XML is a thorough and engaging exploration of the issues XML practitioners are likely to face, with considered advice from one of the trailblazing authorities in the field"
--Neil Bradley, XML and Publishing Consultant and author of The XML Companion, The XSL Companion, and the XML Schema Companion

XML projects can fail for all kinds of reasons, from unrealistic overall goals to mishandled low-level technical decisions. Fortunately, one of the world’s leading XML consultants is ready to show you how to avoid XML pitfalls on your next project.

Since its invention, David Megginson has been helping to drive XML to new levels. He led the team that developed the SAX streaming API now used worldwide, has been a key contributor to the World Wide Web Consortium, and has served as a consultant to many of the world’s leading companies, including Boeing, Reuters, and McGraw-Hill. Drawing on this vast experience, Megginson offers in this book expert solutions and problem-solving guidance for virtually any XML project challenge. You’ll discover best practices for planning, budgeting, scheduling, and managing any XML project: content management, data interchange, legacy integration, or Web services. And you’ll find technical insights that only an expert like Megginson can offer.

Coverage includes

• Setting expectations and planning for extensibility: key success factors in XML projects
• Choosing standards, technical approaches, and architecture
• Overcoming hidden pitfalls in single-source publishing from XML source
• Intelligent searching with XML: essential design and implementation strategies
• Using XML in enterprise integration: practical realities and workarounds
• Scaling smoothly from demo to production system
• Making XML fast: real help for overcoming XML performance problems
• Managing the security risks associated with sending XML data across the Internet
• Recognizing when XML technology is wrong for your project

From start to finish, Imperfect XML presents a clear-eyed view of XML’s advantages and limitations--and technical and management solutions proven to make it work.

good descriptions of XML disadvantages
Ideally, you should already be using XML, to gain the most from this book. The author gives a guide to the huge overlayer of extensions and standards that have accrued atop XML, like barnacles on a ship. Unfortunately, threading this maze to understand what you might really need is not easy for many. So his viewpoint might help you.

Also, at the implementation level, he offers practical advice about such key usages as XML data. He gives advantages and disadvantages. The latter is the best part of the book. Because other books that might explain the topic to someone new to it often just talk about the syntax and the great things that you can accomplish. Rarely will such texts discuss any limitations that have been found through painful experience.

It’s not just for XML data that he does this. For documents, networking, searching, performance and legacy information, he analyses the disadvantages.

If only the title matched the content
It’s a little tough to review this book since in general this is a nice walkthrough of a variety of XML standards. The title, however, hints at a book that would discuss schema design and common XML issues. There is a need for that book, but this is not that book.

This book is a relatively short straightforward walkthrough of XML markup, data standards, searching, legacy conversions and performance. It’s around 200 pages with around 20 pages. The tone is light but terse. Graphics are sparse and are used effectively.

I think this would be an ideal introductory work for someone just starting out with XML. Though I think there are other books that are as good or better.

If only this book had the content implied by it’s title.