are there any good guides for xml

[demon ice boiz]

are there any guides for xml cause i find some that start too far in i need one that starts at beginning

[herodote92]

I'm reading "XML in a Nutshell" (E.R.Harold & W.S.Means, O'Reilly, 2nd ed.) at the moment. Well, it's a reference book as O'Reilly books usually are, that means that it's not really paedagogic, but still it is useful (besides, it's a French edition, full of typos and poorly translated).

XML seems to be made out of parts and bits (DTD, Schemas, XPath, XSLT, XLink, XPointers, XSL-FO, etc, etc) and one really feels a little distressed as to how to assemble all this stuff together - and also cope with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and all the rest of it. You always ask yourself : now where should I begin, and how could I realize a simple applicative example that would work. There is a lot more fumbling in the docs than really developing, not to talk about getting results.

Well... let's not get discouraged, and go on.

[chrisrock79]

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/really-good-introduction-xml
I have only read the excerpt, but it's on my short list.

Chris

[softxml]

Hi!
Try tutorials on http://www.softxml.com

[ryguillian]

If you really want to start 'at the beginning' then I would suggest perusing the XML 1.0 specification:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/

It will provide the most thorough understanding of XML, also, it is sometimes helpful to consult things Tim Beners-Lee has written to understand the philosophy behind XML and the Web. More important than how the separate compontents of XML (XPath, DTDs, etc.) fit together is how the Web in a broad sense fits together. This is also discussed in the 'Architecture of the World Wide Web':

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-webarch-20041215/

- Ryan