Rating: 
Summary: XML and JDOM
Review: I was disappointed after I bought and read this book. I bought this book as a lot of people gave it a five star. I was working on a project using Apache Xerces xml parser and/or SUN's xml parser. This book was not very helpful. The book covers a lot in XML and JDOM parser. It only covers DOM and SAX parser very little. I had to figure out a lot of problems by using on-line documentation and samples. The worst thing about the book is the ad on the back of the book. It says that it covers DOM and SAX. It does cover these topics!!! The correct title for the book should be XML and JDOM. I gave this book a two star as I hate the misleading title and ad on the back of the book. If you buy the book for XML or JDOM, this is a book for you. I don't suggest you buying this book for DOM and SAX.
Rating: 
Summary: An Oreilly title...
Review: I usually buy Oreilly books without much thought, but my past two experiences have me reevaluating my blind faith.This book is patronizing (assumes that the reader has to hand held all the way) and could have been half as thick. There is took little of conceptual understanding and too much silly code which do nothing to explain. Any half competent java programmer can read javadoc and figure out how to use the classes. The part that needs to be explained in the conceptual stuff, which he just glazes over...
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Summary: Never Expected such hopeless Books from This Author
Review: Well this is really not sucha good book that you think of.
Rating:
Summary: Java and XML: Not Enough of Either
Review: Unfortunately, I agree with others who did not find this book very useful. I found the writing style to be very dense, esoteric, with few practical applications for the professional programmer. I contrast Java and XML to what I think is a standard in lucid writing on Java and XML, "XML: How to Program", by Deitel and Deitel. Without reviewing that book here, let me say that Java and XML needs a revamping. Less prose and more well thought-out examples that break up the text would be a great start.
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Summary: Yet another useless XML/Java book.
Review: I guess it's all the hype around xml (and java) that moves people to pollute the market with useless books. This book is simply useless, especially for developers as it only scratches upon the subject of xml/java. Few points: 1. if i need a tutorial on XML, I'll buy an XML book (like Don Box's Essential XML ) and yet about a third of this book dedicated to explaning XML/XSL/XPATH from scratch, which simply doesn't belong there. Not only this XML tutorial is redundant in a book that is supposed to explain java-xml bindings, it's also very superficial and outright pathetic. 2. i bought the as an alernative to javadoc mess from Apache XML project. Unfortunately, instead of exploring SAX/DOM/XPATH/XSLT API avaibale to java developers, the book just briefly mentions how to use SAX and DOM (just a few very trivial examples, no advanced stuff) and completely overlooks anything related to using XSL/XPATH from a java app. 3. 80% of the book is dedicated to the ridiculos JDOM API, which nobody uses. 4. 30% of the book is a description of Apache's Cocoon pblishing framework (hello?) and another 20% is XML-RPC. I'd rather have a solid book that covers a narrow subject in depth, than one of those all-encompassing overly useless 600 pages overviews. 5. oppinionated - the author expresses some nasty oppinions about MSXML, etc., which have no ground... enough of that microsoft abuse already... Overall, it's just a terrible waste of paper...don't buy this book - save the trees....
Rating:
Summary: JDOM for XML
Review: The title "Java and XML" is misleading, because the whole book relies on JDOM. If you want use other main stream API for XML, this is not the book. Since 90 percent of this book is related to JDOM, I think "JDOM for XML" is a better title for this book. If your project is not using JDOM API, you can gain nothing from the book.
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Summary: Bottom rung
Review: As previous reviewers have pointed out, this book succeeds at nothing more than being a sales pitch for JDOM. In fairness, XML is so large and in such a state of flux that it's difficult for any book to do it justice, but this title certainly isn't the best that can be done. Yes, the Wrox book is pretty bad, but this one isn't much better. As for JDOM being accepted as a JSR by Sun, do you suppose that has anything to do with Jason Hunter (one of JDOM's creators) being recently elected to the JCP executive committee for J2EE? Let's see: no reviews for a month, and then three five-star reviews appear within two days time, one of which describes the negative reviews on here as "misleading". Wow, what a . . . coincidence for three of them to show up at once. Do you feel a little like Dorothy being told to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"?
Rating: 
Summary: Get It
Review: This is still the best Java XML book around. There is a lot of basics on XML in it, but other than XML in a NUtshell, this is the only book with that information anyways. I use the XML chapters a lot even now... and the Java stuff is clearly explained. I tried other Java and XML books, but they just got too bogged down with stuff I didn't care about. This at least showed me how to do things, without wasting my time.
Rating:
Summary: Clear and current
Review: This is the place to start and end with Java and XML. It covers SAX 2 and DOM 2, both of which I need at work (SAX 1 and DOM Level 1 aren't enough). It explained namespaces easily, and also gave me a leg up on JAXP. I have the XML Programming book by Wrox, which is terrible, and the authors never answer my questions. Brett has sent me two emails in response to my questions, each over a page long (the answers). I also am using XML-RPC at work now, because of this book explaining XML-RPC in great detail. Brett also said the 2nd edition will cover SOAP, which I'm looking forward to! I've been able to debug data binding code in packages like Castor now because of what I learned with this book. I give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Top notch
Review: I have this book, and have had it since the month it came out. I'm not sure why there are as many negative reviews as I see - they are really misleading. I've used this book consistently for 6 months, and the author has even answered my questions in email within 24 hours (on 4 occasions!). The complaint I keep seeing is that JDOM is not standard - but I saw today that Sun accepted it as a JSR, and it's likely to be in Java 1.5... so I don't see how that's not standard! Highly recommended - I now am the XML expert at my job, and this is a big reason why!
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