Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Path: utzoo!sq!dns
From: dns@sq.sq.com (David Slocombe)
Subject: Re: The SGML Handbook is out
Message-ID: <1991Jan20.174726.3867@sq.sq.com>
Summary: Review of Eric van Herwijnen's book
Keywords: SGML, Eric van Herwijnen, Charles Goldfarb
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto
References: <1991Jan13.225050.10045@sq.sq.com> <00942CA1.3F30D9E0@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> <313@tivoli.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 17:47:26 GMT
Lines: 79

In article <313@tivoli.UUCP> lark@tivoli.UUCP (Lar Kaufman) writes:

>[The Bookstop (Austin,TX) placed]
>an order for me, and I later pulled out the receipt and discovered that 
>they had instead ordered me yet another copy of Martin's _Author's Guide 
>to SGML_.  I went back and asked another clerk to correct the order.

Perhaps this is a good time to plug an alternative introductory book on
SGML which I think is far more "accessible" than Martin Bryan's (though we
all owe Martin a debt for his heroic efforts in getting a book about SGML
out when there was nothing else of any substance but the stupefyingly-opaque 
Standard itself):

	Eric van Herwijnen (CERN, Geneva)
	Practical SGML
	(Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990)
	307pp. pprbk
	ISBN 0-7923-0635-X

This book is very readable, and just the thing for anyone who wants to
get on with using SGML without desiring to become an expert right away
in the twisty-turns of Charles' legal mind, and it also serves as a
very useful tutorial on DTD-writing, and puts SGML in the contexts of
CALS and EDI.  Includes good examples, and even quizzes with answers!
I think a newcomer to SGML -- even one who must become expert -- would
be well-advised to read this book as a prelude to _The_SGML_Handbook_.

In fact I guess I'm motivated enough to type in a *summary* of the Contents:

Part I. GETTING STARTED WITH SGML
	 1. Introduction
  	 2. An SGML application -- document type components
	 3. Creating an SGML application: method and basics
	 4. Creating an SGML application: examples and summary
	 5. Managing SGML

Part II. ADVANCED SGML
	 6. Creating an SGML application: advanced concepts
	 7. Advanced SGML constructs
	 8. Mathematics and Graphics

Part III. SGML IMPLEMENTATIONS
	 9. SGML implementations
	10. Creating SGML documents
	11. SGML and databases
	12. The CALS initiative
	13. SGML and EDI

Appendix A. Answers to the problems
Appendix B. Writing a book on SGML using SGML
Appendix C. The Ericbook DTD
Appendix D. Some TeX entity definitions
Appendix E. How to read ISO 8879
Glossary
Index

Every chapter, and even the Glossary, has a bibliography.

	*	*	*	*	*	*

Lar Kaufman continues:

>[An Austin,TX bookstore] accepted my order for 2 copies [of The SGML
>Handbook], but didn't have a current price list.  They called me back
>yesterday and told me that they had called Oxford University Press and
>been told that the book is not yet available; that it will be printed
>and shipped in late February and that pricing was not yet set.

Well it sure is printed and bound -- I've got the proof right here. But
I did apparantly jump the gun a little: the Canadian office of Oxford U.P.
says their expected availability date is "mid-February". 

David.
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