The XML and SGML Cookbook: Recipes for Structured Information.

Rick Jelliffe. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 1998. [ISBN 0-13614223-0. 619 pages, including index and CD-ROM. $55.00 (softcover).]

First came SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language, an international standard for marking up text. That was in 1986. Then came HTML,

the Hypertext Markup Language. Web and Internet designers applied SGML to the creation of HTML. Many other organizations have created their own applications of SGML, such as the automotive industry with their J2008 standard and the semiconductor industry with their Pinnacles initiative, although you won't hear about these as often as you do HTML. Now comes XML, or Extensible Markup Language. According to industry backers such as Microsoft and Netscape, XML is easier to use than SGML, but more flexible than HTML.

XML has rapidly gained popularity. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) officially recommended it in February 1998, and you can already find useful XML-aware software from Microsoft, Corel, and ArborText. Other players in the document processing industry - for example, Netscape - have announced support for XML in their products.

An XML conference in March 1998 saw attendance increase 700% from the previous year. I counted at the conference seven books offered for sale discussing some aspect of XML. There has been a rush of interest in XML, and some of the books appeared to be rushed to publication. The XML & SGML cookbook: Recipes for structured information, by Rick Jelliffe, does not appear to suffer from rushing to press, although when the book was originally announced, the title did not include the word XML.

This is a good book for someone who has already learned HTML and will be designing, developing, or working with complete XML or SGML systems. It does not tutor you in the syntax of SGML and XML. If you know HTML already, you should be able to follow the discussion. Jelliffe talks very little about tools to help you do your job, such as authoring, parsing, or rendering software, although he does include some software on the CD-ROM that comes with the book. Instead, he emphasizes the principles of good document design and system implementation that he has collected from his own experiences in the publishing industry and from his reading of much of the SGML literature from the past 10 years.