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Hi

I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
cheap for what you get??

I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
will do what I need.

And, are there any cheaper alternatives?

Many thanks

Daz

daz_oldham wrote:

> I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy

Used it on my last site (multi-seat site licence) and found our old
version of it to be attractive, but annoyingly buggy. On my current
site we use cheapskate open-source products, and find them to be far
better quality.

Good stuff with XML Spy:

- Nicely integrated XSLT workbench
- Easy introduction to XML Schema
- Really powerful project folder organisation.

Bad stuff with XML Spy:

- XML editor works wrongly. It creates paired tags when you create the
element, but it has no ability to close an existing start tag. jEdit is
vastly better.

- Rubbish XML validator. It gives you messages of the form "Diddly
squat somewhere near here" then leaves you to sort it out yourself.
Just when a "smart" XML editor is supposed to be at its most useful,
XMLSpy goes on a fag break. This is particularly irksome for beginners.

- Altova. Completely unhelpful over anything, including selling new
upgrade licences without buying full-price retail all over again. I'd
never deal with this compnay again, they were that unhelpful.

- Buggy. Prone to random "disappearing up its own root element"
crashes that lost your work.

- No printing. Looks great, but it crashes whenever you try to
actually print from it.

- Memory leaks

- Project folder organisation is powerful, but incomprehensible. You
really need to ask someone who has been using it for ages what the best
way to set things up is.

- Not much DTD support. I don't like them either, but I do still have
to work with the damned things.

- Obscure problems with working on XML documents referring to public
DTDs that either aren't downloadable, or aren't strictly accurate.
XMLSpy gets very confused here and there's nothing you can do about it.
It's not really a good answer to give BlueChipCo who are asking why
your code for their global integration product isn't working yet and
you tell them it's because their public DTD on the server at
head-office is an out-of-date version.


Overall I'd use it, but I don't like it, and I certainly wouldn't pay
money for it.

(Eclipse kicks ass)

I'm using the current version - 2006 sp2 - and find it very useful. I'm
at best a medium-level XSL-coder, doing jobs XML/XSL occasionally, and
XML Spy has helped me getting going. In particular, the debugger is
undispensable, as for any programming task. It's costly, but I have no
problems justifying the cost for my company. I've been able to focus on
the tasks at hand and be productive, even though it's a "left-hand" job
for me.

I haven't looked at alternatives. I tried the evaluation copy and it
convinced me to look no further. Particularly since I needed XSLT 2.0
features (or would be able to do some coding really much easier), and
XML Spy came right on time supporting them.

/Bo

daz_oldham wrote:
> Hi
>
> I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
> that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
> cheap for what you get??
>
> I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
> a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
> will do what I need.
>
> And, are there any cheaper alternatives?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Daz

Daz,

If you are not looking for graphical tools, VS 2005 should handle your
needs. Here's an introduction article about Xml/Xslt/Xsd editing and Xslt
debugging:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...l/xmltools.asp

--
Stan Kitsis
Program Manager, XML Technologies
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"daz_oldham" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Hi
>
> I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
> that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
> cheap for what you get??
>
> I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
> a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
> will do what I need.
>
> And, are there any cheaper alternatives?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Daz
>

Hi Andy!

I guess Daz has to try XMLSpy on his own because I don't share most of
your experiences with the product. Printing is of course working and
the Project funtionalities are really powerful and quite easy to set
up. Regarding the DTD support you have full OASIS Catalog support so
you can reference to public DTDs on your own PC.

What special DTD support would you like to have? Your XML instances
based on DTDs are validated and you get an Entry Helper on editing.
There is also an integrated entity support.

Compared to other products I think XMLSpy is pretty stable. Ok, I have
to admit that I mainly use XMLSpy.

Cheers

Hey everyone - thanks for your input on this.

I think for the time being I am going to give Visual Studio a try, and
if I find I need the extra support that the graphical elements you get
from XML Spy, then I will try to get my company to purchase it for me.

Thanks again - I really appreaciate it.

Darren

spiff wrote:

> I guess Daz has to try XMLSpy on his own because I don't share most of
> your experiences with the product.

IMHO, the lack of auto-closure on elements with existing start tags is
enough of a reason on its own to use jEdit (or anything!) rather than
XMLSpy.

> Printing is of course working

Printing was _not_ working. When a large corporate can't print from
XMLSpy (probably because they're running an obsolete version of XMLSpy)
and Altova's only response was "Buy new full-retail-cost licences for
everyone and _hope_ that might fix our bug", then that's not "working"
by my understanding of the term.

I'm sure printing probably does work for small Schemas under the latest
release of XMLSpy. But that didn't help me.

> Project funtionalities are really powerful and quite easy to set up.

They're easy to set up, but only if you know how best to set them up.
An XMLSpy "greybeard" can configure things up usefully and effectively
in minutes, a beginner is likely to take one look at the complexity and
not even try. This is a tutorial issue, not a product function issue.


> Regarding the DTD support you have full OASIS Catalog support so
> you can reference to public DTDs on your own PC.
>
> What special DTD support would you like to have?

My specific problem was with a large multi-component DTD (ecomm
integration) that was poorly hosted by its owner. Presumably it had
been set up by SGML wizards who had now left -- now the paths no longer
pointed between modules as they ought, and this confused XMLSpy
horribly (to the point of refusing to load documents).

The only way I could author was to have an XSLT transform added to my
publishing process. I worked on copies hacked up to use local DTD
copies, then re-wrote the doctypes when I released the code.

This wasn't "wrong" behaviour by XMLSpy, because there was an "error"
in the document and the tool was perfectly entitled to reject the
document as "invalid". However this is not the behaviour I want from a
good and useful tool -- my work consists of fixing stuff - the
documents and code I open _are_ invalid, that's why I have to open them
up and fix them. XMLSpy worked fine when everything was perfect, but it
was a disaster under pressure in the debuggering phase.

You could also use Stylus Studio. See http://www.stylusstudio.com/

It is very conformant to standards, provides good cross-platform
support by letting you validate with several XSD validators including
XSV, Xerces-C++, Xerces-J and Saxonica.
http://www.stylusstudio.com/open_xsd_validation.html

It supports XSLT 1 and XSLT 2, across a variety of engines including
Saxon 8 -B and -SA, Saxon 6, Xalan, System.Xml from .Net, and more.
http://www.stylusstudio.com/xslt.html

It supports a variety of XQuery engines as well, including DDXQ
and Saxonica.
http://www.stylusstudio.com/xquery.html

You can cross-platform debug and profile code as well - you can even
debug Java extension functions by stepping and setting breakpoints
and going between XSLT and Java in the same call stack.

And we offer free support on the Stylus Studio Developer Network,
at http://www.stylusstudio.com/SSDN/


On 05-12-2006 5:09 AM, daz_oldham wrote:
> Hi
>
> I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
> that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
> cheap for what you get??
>
> I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
> a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
> will do what I need.
>
> And, are there any cheaper alternatives?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Daz
>


--
Sincerely,
Tony Lavinio
Stylus Studio Principal Software Architect
http://www.stylusstudio.com/

"daz_oldham" <> wrote in
news: oups.com:

> Hi
>
> I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
> that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
> cheap for what you get??
>
> I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
> a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
> will do what I need.
>
> And, are there any cheaper alternatives?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Daz
>

Chiming in late, but I would look elsewhere. XML validator is buggy.
XPath evaluator is buggy.

--
Patrick Maloney
New York State Workers' Compensation Board

(Remove REMOVE from e-mail address to reply)

Which validator and XPath engine is not buggy?

Regards

Patrick J. Maloney wrote:
> "daz_oldham" <> wrote in
> news: oups.com:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I was just wondering what people thought of XML Spy and the XML Suite
> > that Alotva do and if it is worth shelling out for it. And, is it
> > cheap for what you get??
> >
> > I am looking to be working with XML, XSD, XSLT so don't know if getting
> > a tool like this would make my life easier, or if Visual Studio 2005
> > will do what I need.
> >
> > And, are there any cheaper alternatives?
> >
> > Many thanks
> >
> > Daz
> >
>
> Chiming in late, but I would look elsewhere. XML validator is buggy.
> XPath evaluator is buggy.
>
> --
> Patrick Maloney
> New York State Workers' Compensation Board
>
> (Remove REMOVE from e-mail address to reply)