VoiceXML: Professional Developer's Guide with CDROM

In short, this is the VoiceXML book I wish I had written. The authors have produced a comprehensive title that includes gems that could only have originated from masters of the craft.

My only complaint is that the book is a bit too biased towards Tellme (one of the authors is an employee), but this can be forgiven based on the quality and depth of the content.

My judgement is that this book is the most well rounded in-depth book on the topic that's been published to date. I am very happy with the mix of content, summaries of important concepts such as linguistics, speech recognition, and speech synthesis, as well as the in-your-face examples and complete reference. In fact, I liked it so much that I will probably be using it as a standard reference in my company's VoiceXML training course.


Great VoiceXML book   April 5, 2002
 1 out of 5 found this review helpful

It is funny how I was glancing at the books and this book Voice XML caught my attention. I was looking for a book like this. This is a great resource for Voice XML developers like me. The book covers wide range of topics. The book is an excellent hands on guide to build voice applications with Voice XML 2.0. I liked the VUI design tips throughout the book. Great job!


Good coverage, up-to-date, very userful   March 2, 2002
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This is the best VoiceXML book I've seen. Most VoiceXML books try to do too much: talk about voice hardware, telephony, the history of voice, tts, as well as be a VoiceXML reference. The weakness of these books is that one or more of these sections reveals that the authors do not really command the knowledge needed to make these sections useful. This book also attempts to do these things, but for the most part is able to carry it off.

If you're looking for a reference, this is the book to get. The reference section is current VoiceXML 2.0 (October 2001), which is an advantage in and of itself. But the real strength of the reference section is its depth. Each element, (e.g., , , ) has an entry for syntax (how to invoke the element), a description (what the element is used for), a thorough discussion of its attributes (that is, a description of the attribute), a usage statement (the elements parents and children), and an example (a snipet of complete code that uses the element). The examples and discussion of attributes really set this book apart from its peers.

There is a brief discussion of the architecture of a VoiceXML app, and a couple of paragraphs discussing the differences between VoiceXML 1.0 and 2.0.

The book also gives, contrary to my expectations, a history of the voice industry, a history of VoiceXML, and a discussion of players in the industry. What makes this book's treatment of these topics unusual is that the authors (particularly Kunins, I suspect) actually know these fields. I don't normally want these sections in a reference book (it just adds bulk around the section I really want) but I found them quite compelling here. I learned quite a bit from reading them.

The book also contains sections on Dynamic VoiceXML, Security, Voice App Life Cycle, VUI Design, the Future of VoiceXML, and a case study. I haven't read these sections yet, so I can't comment on them. I do know, however, that the sections I have read are sufficiently superior to make this THE VoiceXML book on their own.

If I were to criticize the book, I would fault the authors' lavish praise of TellMe (this is minor and not unexpected) and the examples in the reference section. The examples are quite good for someone learning VoiceXML, and the authors are commended for including them. The fault (albeit a minor one) is that they are fairly vanilla. So, while I would have preferred more examples, I concede that such examples would make the book much larger and the inclusion of "advanced" examples to the exclusion of "canonical" examples would have made them less useful to developers learning VoiceXML.

Overall, if you are going to own one VoiceXML reference, THIS should be that one.


Excellent resource   February 3, 2002
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

This book is an excellent resource for a VoiceXML developer. It covers a wide range of topics in detail and has some excellent VUI design tips. I love the cross reference of voice technology companies and the services that they provide.