By Jennifer Kyrnin

When you're trying to learn XML, you can start online, but sometimes it's easier to just find a good book. But where do you start? There are, already, many many books on XML. Many of them are very good, but here are some of my favorites.

Learning XML
by Erik T. Ray
"Creating self-describing data" is the tagline of this book, and that's what you'll learn how to do once you've finished it. It is a strong over view of XML and what the goals and features of XML are. You'll also understand that XML really isn't a markup language itself, but instead a language to build your own markup language.

Once you've finished the book, you'll understand:

• how to build a well-formed XML document
• connecting your documents together (using XLink)
• using style sheets, both for transformation and for presentation
• international issues
• how to use XML with programs to store and manipulate data

This is not an all-purpose reference manual. It explains how the basics of XML work so that you can get started and understand. If you want to get started learning XML offline, this is a great choice.

Learning XML
Author: Erik T. Ray
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0-596-00046-4
List price: US $34.95

XML in a Nutshell
by Elliotte Rusty Harold and W. Scott Means
If you're using XML on a regular basis, then you should have this reference book on your desk. While it has basics like DTDs, creating well-formed documents, namespaces, and internationalization, it also covers more useful (reference) information like using your XML on the Web, XSLT, XPath, and XLink. I love the extensive character set information, over 40 pages of character sets.

There is a full reference manual for the following specifications:

• XPath
• XSLT
• the Document Object Model (DOM)
• SAX (Simple API for XML

There is a lot to know about XML, but with this excellent reference manual, you don't have to know it, just where to look it up. Once you're comfortable with XML, you will want this book as part of your library.

XML in a Nutshell
Author: Elliotte Rusty Harold and W. Scott Means
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0-596-00058-8
List price: US $29.95

XML Pocket Reference
by: Robert Eckstein
Sometimes all you need is a quick introduction to the topic and you're off. When this book came out, I used it extensively to get more familiar with XML. It's small, but like Mima always used to say, "good things come in small packages".

One of the nicest things in this small book, is that it is geared with the former HTML developer in mind. It discusses how to use XML with references to HTML, explains some common bad habits for HTML developers to overcome, and has clear instructions on how to use XML. You'll get a quick overview of some of the most commonly used elements of:

• XSLT
• XLink
• XPointer

This book is not just a pocket reference, it's a good quick introduction to XML. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who knows no programming or markup languages, but if you have a general idea of how programming works, you can learn to use XML with this small book.

XML Pocket Reference
Author: Robert Eckstein
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 1-56592-709-5
List price: US $9.95

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