Book Review: XML Weekend Crash Course

I have spent a lot of money on Programming books, even since graduating from school. They are one of my favorite hobbies. Very often, for various reasons I don't finish or get a lot out of them, BUT I've never had an experience that made me want to write a negative review of one, until now. I am so disgusted with this book that I decided to at least get the word out.

XML Weekend Crash Course is a book that will surely make anyone that makes the mistake of buying it, as I have, crazy. I picked it up because a long time ago I got a Java Weekend Crash Course book that wasn't too bad. After I finished it I knew enough Java to be dangerous, well, almost enough. Unfortunately, the age of this book and bad or lazy planning by the authors makes it more than obsolete, it is a waste of time.

I realize that this book was published in 2001, I know they could not foresee everything about this programming language, but you do not set up more than half your book based on one piece of software. Of course there are other ways to go further with XML without the Instant Saxon software they tout and insist you must use. It is included on the disk, but doesn't work and is not supported(the web site they send you to is vague and the downloads you may use there are confusing and not helpful). Now I will be looking elsewhere for that information when I bought this book for that reason, and all of the fragments of code they have had me updating, waste. The SUPPORT Web Site is non-existent, and the disk harder to access than a 1999 magazine demo disk.

It starts out pretty good, but then they begin doing more complicated code that apparently needs to use an application called Instant Saxon, for reasons which I now do not know. Of course, I might have known if only they had stayed with the 'program'. As somewhat of an experienced reader of these types of books, I realize that this type of work is quickly being replaced by well-thought out, creative franchises like Head First and Pragmatic Books, but this one kind of stung.

I mean, it's like they set me up. 233 pages in and they drop the ball like that. In even a couple more days retrospect since my initial writing of this, I have decided that I was most angry because it was moving so good a the time, not at all like a poorly, lazily written work, then WHAM. It's like getting kicked out of the car at midnight, when you've already gotten to third base.

Learning about Shock, and Evil, from Naomi Klein

How Naomi Klein opened my eyes, more than just a little bit, in the Shock Doctrine.

This is not my usual fare, not for reading, not for research, not in general. I'm not completely apathetic when it comes to politics, I vote, and I try to vote with at least some base of knowledge, but I am determinedly middle of the road in my politics, and just as devoted to keeping myself from being dragged into IT. By IT, I mean the anger that I see in everyone's eyes that is embroiled in partisan politics, both sides.

After reading this book, I can begin to understand the anger, but am able to hold it off within me. Yes, I am still in the middle of the road, but better informed, and wary of those that come bearing gifts after floods or fires or anything.

My friend, one of those angry people, told me that if I read one book about politics, and yes, this was my first, read this one. It may be a while before I read another, because still, this is not my regular reading material, but this was powerful. It is the voice of someone that has walked the walk. There is definitely bias in her prose, but it is footnoted, and comes over as "If you'd seen what I have, you'd be biased too."

I usually fly through books, inhaling 700 page volumes from Dan Simmons in a week or two, the 1200 page Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in nearly as short a time, but not this one. I read and reread pages, I let it soak in, I took breaks, and I was disappointed when it was over, and surprised because there are so many pages of footnotes that I didn't realize that I had come to the end.

In searching for images to go along with this post, I found out that a short film has been made about her book as well. Free on Youtube, it was made my the director of Children of Men, apparently a personal friend of Klein's, and gets right to the points she makes in her books. Starting with the theory of shock therapy, and how it destroys a persons humanity, then corresponding to the economics professed by a Chicago economist named Milton Friedman, of whom I had never heard of before this book.

Friedman and his disciples have privatized the world, making the follies that I saw in the Army, as the government tried to run things, look like full-fledged competence.I won't try to explain what I think I understand about it all anymore. It is instead a better idea to simply recommend the book, and the movie. It's less than seven minutes long, and very well done.