A big (1000+ page) book, Professional XML Databases
(Kevin Williams and nine co-authors) attempts to provide
developers with comprehensive information on "how to
integrate XML into their current relational data source
strategies." Overall, it seems to do a pretty good job of
fulfilling that goal -- especially in the chapters that don't
rely on details about specific applications.
No part divisions other than chapters are provided in the
table of contents or in the book itself. But if you happen to
read the book's Introduction, you'll discover that its 21
chapters are actually grouped into five parts: Design
Techniques, Technologies, Data Access, Common Tasks, and Case
Studies. Also included are five appendixes: primers on XML
and on relational databases, references to W3C XML Schema
datatypes and SAX, and instructions on setting up a virtual
directory for SQL Server 2000.
The best and most broadly useful chapters in the book
are:
-
all four chapters in the 140-page Design Techniques
section, which provide conceptual and how-to
information on topics ranging from representing data in
XML to migrating existing databases to XML to creating
database structures for existing XML to broad design
guidelines. Most readers should find this first part of
the book useful regardless of any specific
implementation they may have in mind.
-
the chapters on W3C XML Schema [1] and the XML
Query language in the Technologies section (though the
chapter on the XML Query language is understandably not
completely up to date). The chapter that closes out the
Technologies section -- on moving data between flat
files and XML -- is also good, though some readers
might not be thrilled with the author's choice of
VBScript as a language for the code examples.
-
all three chapters in the Common Tasks section,
which treat data warehousing, data transmission, and
marshalling and presentation
Most of the other chapters either treat various W3C
technologies that are already covered better and in more
detail in other books, or discuss implementation details in
terms of proprietary technologies (for example, ADO and SQL
Server 2000) -- with two exceptions: a chapter that discusses
implementation of platform-neutral, device-independent access
to data using the JDBC API, and a
chapter on the open-source DB
Prism framework for dynamically generating XML from a
database.
Overall, because of the book's focus on Microsoft
technology in the Data Access chapters, it's probably most
useful to developers who are using that technology. However,
other readers may find it worthwhile for the chapters
mentioned above, which should be useful regardless of
implementation plans. Developers looking for an open-source
approach to some of the same material may also want to take a
look at Liam Quin's Open
Source XML Database Toolkit.
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