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Inside . . .You can view the Boston Broadside in .pdf and you can download for free Adobe Acrobat Reader v4.0.
Technical Writring at SolidWorks is a Collaborative Effort Competitions 2000 Awards Banquet: the STACIEs Scholarships: Communicator's Toolchest Book Review: A Review of the XSL Companion Society for Technical Communication, Inc |
Review summary:Let's begin with the most obvious question: Why bother with XSL at all? If you are sure that you will never need to get involved with e-publishing systems that use XML, then you need not bother with XML or the XSL family of standards (XSL embraces XSL proper, XPath, and XSLT). However, an increasing number of electronic publishing systems, such as BroadVision's One-to-One Publisher (formerly BladeRunner), use XSL. And XSL is increasingly becoming an important technology in Web development and delivery. In fact, if you're familiar with XML itself, XSL is probably the next set of standards you should learn. Now if you need to learn XSL, or think it might be a career-enhancing move, there are currently very few books that describe XSL. In fact, some of these books can be overwhelming in size and in programming detail. The XSL Companion is different, and, I feel, aptly named a 'companion'. I found the book to be a gentle introduction to XSL, an otherwise imposing topic. In Bradley's book, the overview provides a clear introduction to the XSL standards and such tools as XSL processors, explaining what they do and how they do it. I actually copied the style-sheet example in the overview and used Microsoft's freely available XML parser and an integrated development environment (XML Spy) to quickly produce a styled result. I could then view it in my browser. This kind of quick success is the key to learning XSL. Bradley also explains in greater detail the essentials of XSL, and he manages to keep the descriptions and examples as simple as possible. I definitely recommend The XSL Companion, although I did find one
disappointing shortcoming. The book lacks a companion CD, and Bradley's Web
site does not make examples or details available (although I
think the details were wisely omitted for the companion). And if you need to try things out to understand them, you'll also need to get some companion software. Some is free, and some is modestly priced. For a resource sheet with suggestions, go to my web site: Bob is an information architect at Forefield Inc, a financial knowledge
management firm. A freelance writer, he writes columns and software reviews for EMedia Professional. Report any problems with the Broadside online to
abruce@tibco.com |
