Learning XSLT

Rating:
Summary: Not the Most Interesting, But Definitely a Good Start
Review: Based on it's cost, this book is definitely worth every penny. If you are interested in coding in XSLT, this is the only book you will probably need for a while. Of course, I'm assuming that you have a decent background in Java which supports XSLT translations. Once you've mastered the concepts in this text, you will be ready for one of the larger reference manuals. Of course, XSLT reference ( from wrox for example )are pretty much only necessary for those who are looking to become XSLT gurus. This book is very informative and helpful but a bit dull, but then again so are a lot of other O'Reilly titles. Then again, if you're looking for excitement, read a book on skydiving or something.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of Money
Review: Everthing you find in this book is available online. Examples are so simple(to be fair, the author did state he will use simple example in the book)that it doesn't really increase your understanding.

Afterward I got Michael Kay's book on XSLT by WROK, it soo much better.

Rating:
Summary: A good beginning book
Review: Hi,
Recently I need to become a little more than a beginner for XSLT. The word of XSLT is very wide and can be seen as simple as a formatting tool or as deep and complicated as calling java object from your tranformation.
If you are already an expert on XSLT this is not your book, but if you need a start that doesn't require that you already know the topic, this is a perfect book to start with.
Max Pellizzaro.
http://www.maxpellizzaro.com

Rating:
Summary: ok, I'll bite
Review: I am the author of this book. Like other books in O'Reilly's Learning series, this book is a tutorial! Under the Learning charter, it provides over 200 working, easy-to-grok XSLT and XML examples, building blocks from which you can create your own stylesheets for just about any application. It builds a foundation slowly, brick-by-brick, because the book is for beginners. Nevertheless, as anyone who has learned this language on his or her own knows, there is no royal road to XSLT: You have to work at it to grasp it, and you can't do that in a few chapters, though I have tried to make it as easy as possible.

The book covers all features of XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0 -- all big-picture concepts are covered in the book, though these concepts are uncoiled slowly, as this is the nature of a tutorial. Granted, there is extra detail in this book, covering various issues such as Unicode and encoding schemes, but this is so that readers don't have to look elsewhere to understand the fundamentals of what is going on in a given stylesheet.

To get a feel for the book, go to the O'Reilly site and search for Learning XSLT. There you will find a sample chapter (Chapter 2, 30 pages) so you can judge for yourself if the book is right for your needs. The book was reviewed by five technical reviewers, including XSLT 2.0 editor Michael Kay, who beat the living tar out of the manuscript and and out of me, I might add. I am happy to handle personally any specific corrections, challenges, or unfortunate mischaracterizations of my work. I also suggest that you read reviews of my other books on the Amazon site, XSL Essentials and Building B2B Applications with XML.

I have rated my own book with a neutral three stars, to avoid the appearance of any unfair bias.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Introduction to XSLT
Review: I know O'Reilly books are supposed to be more advanced than other offerings, but the O'Reilly "sub-series" Learning XYZ generally tends to take it a bit easier on beginners. This book really fails to be tutorial in nature and digresses into deeper subjects rather quickly. Not recommeded for beginners, so don't be fooled by the title inference.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat Disappointing
Review: I'm a software documentation specialist and Java programmer who needed a text that would enable me to read a few chapters, get the gist, and start applying XSLT at work, looking up details as I go. I think Mr. Fitzgerald had another audience in mind when he wrote this book.

Discussions of big-picture concepts like how templates work and XPath in the early chapters of the book were not, in my opinion, adequately expansive and often digressed into what I consider peripheral detail. Information about templates that I consider key to understanding how a stylesheet works was not addressed until Chapter 10. And I had to lean heavily on the W3C's XPath Recommendation because I could not find important details about XPath in the single-chapter coverage the author provides.

This book offers virtually no practical advice on how to approach transformation of complex, real-world markup. The examples are short, contrived, and generally uninformative, beyond providing basic syntax.

I purchased this book because my employer offers discounts on O'Reilly books, and of the XSLT titles O'Reilly offers, this one seemed closest to my needs. Probably should have looked harder.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: Learning XSLT provides a comprehensive introduction to XSLT. This is a very good entry-level book on XSLT. This book provides a entry level approach without being too "entry level." The author focuses on providing examples for each concept demonstrated and builds on those examples in subsequent chapters. The author explains the template-based approach of XSLT and how it is different from typical programming or scripting languages.

In addition, the book covers XSLT functions. The functions are explained fully and examples are well written. After each example, the book discusses the implications of the example and the output that results from the transformation. The author points out where the chapter in the book relations to the section of the XSLT specification, if the reader wanted to find the actual specification. All the chapters are easy to follow and understand because the author's writing style is very fluid and clear. The upcoming XSLT 2.0 specifications are also highlighted throughout the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone new to XSLT. It's a good book for learning XSLT in clear terms and at an easy pace. You won't be let down if you take the time to read it carefully, try out the different features of XSLT, and think about the XSLT concepts presented.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: Learning XSLT provides a comprehensive introduction to XSLT. This is a very good entry-level book on XSLT. This book provides a entry level approach without being too "entry level." The author focuses on providing examples for each concept demonstrated and builds on those examples in subsequent chapters. The author explains the template-based approach of XSLT and how it is different from typical programming or scripting languages.

In addition, the book covers XSLT functions. The functions are explained fully and examples are well written. After each example, the book discusses the implications of the example and the output that results from the transformation. The author points out where the chapter in the book relations to the section of the XSLT specification, if the reader wanted to find the actual specification. All the chapters are easy to follow and understand because the author's writing style is very fluid and clear. The upcoming XSLT 2.0 specifications are also highlighted throughout the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone new to XSLT. It's a good book for learning XSLT in clear terms and at an easy pace. You won't be let down if you take the time to read it carefully, try out the different features of XSLT, and think about the XSLT concepts presented.

Rating:
Summary: Solid material for the beginning XSLT coder...
Review: Target Audience
Developers who are looking for an entry level text to learn XSLT and XPath.

Contents
This is a tutorial guide for teaching yourself the fundamentals of Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, or XSLT.

The book contains the following chapters: Preface; Transforming Documents with XSLT; Building New Documents with XSLT; Controlling Output; Traversing the Tree; XPath and XSLT Functions; Copying Nodes; Using Variables and Parameters; Sorting Things Out; Numbering Lists; Templates; Using Keys; Conditional Processing; Working with Multiple Documents; Alternative Stylesheets; Extensions; XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0; Writing an XSLT Processor Interface; Parting Words; Appendix: XSLT Processors; Glossary; Index

Review
While XML is becoming the de facto standard for data exchange between programs and platforms, it does nothing to allow the reader to see the data in a useful, formatted output. And, since XML is not concerned about presentation of data, that's proper. What you need is some way to turn that data into readable output based on the reader's needs. To do that, you use XSLT. That's where this book comes into play.

Michael Fitzgerald has written a concise, easy-to-follow book that will allow you to start working with the XSLT language. Since this book is not combined with every other XML technology known to man, you will not get lost in a morass of acronyms or concepts that would quickly confuse the beginner. The focus is just XSLT, and the assumption is that you are approaching the language for the first time. There are a number of examples that give you hands-on experience during the learning process, and most of the examples also show a screen print of the browser output so that you know if you were successful with your coding. The code can also be downloaded from the book's website, so if you just want to skip to the output, you can do that.

The author doesn't try to write for both the beginner and the expert. Since the focus is on the beginning XSLT coder, the person with an existing base of XSLT experience may not find this book of much use. I don't say that as a gripe against the book, rather as a way to manage your expectations. It's better than a "For Dummies" title, but it's not an exhaustive guide to all that is XSLT. If you fall into the target audience, you should gain a lot from this title.

Conclusion
Learning XSLT is a very good choice to start your foray into the world of XML transformations. You should come away with the basic information you need to be effective and continue to expand your experience.

Rating:
Summary: Provides a solid introduction to XSLT
Review: While XSLT isn't a complex language, its declarative and template-based nature can make harder than expected to learn it, especially for people used to procedural languages. That's why a book like this, which provides a solid introduction to XSLT, may be more valuable than you would expect. The author manages to assemble an entry-level book without writing another useless "for dummies" guide. Fitzgerald filled the book with a huge amount of practical examples; you get plenty of code listings that often build on top of each other; incrementing the complexity along the way (an effective choice). In my opinion the writing style isn't always crystal clear and the author often introduce topics too early, briefly mentioning things that get a full explanation only a few chapters later. Notwithstanding this shortcoming, I think it's an excellent book that can really help getting started with XSLT. I would suggest to read it in a linear fashion, from beginning to the end in order to get the best out of it.