Mastering XSLT

Rating:
Summary: Very in-depth, invaluable but not for beginners
Review: Before I bought this book, I took a look at many books for deciding which one to buy.I bought this book 'coz it seemed the best one for me, and. indeed, it is. It explains a lot about xslt template and the neccessary functions. Many other books don't have any explanation about how to use it. I strongly recommend this book!

Rating:
Summary: Very, very comprehensive
Review: I can see where the author of the previous review is coming from. I agree that this book is not a good starting point for beginners. The writing consists of dialog and narration in long paragraphs compared to other computer books that have a lot of screenshots, diagrams and bullet points for fast reading and organization (which I generally prefer).

However, if you have programming background and some experience with HTML/XML you won't find another book with as many detailed examples and as thorough explanations. I am currently developing some XSLT templates for a project in my company and this book has proven to be a great source of ideas and techniques for solving a wide range of uncommon problems that other books do not cover.

Highly recommended for experienced users to be used as a thorough reference.

Rating:
Summary: Very in-depth, invaluable but not for beginners
Review: I have started reading this book and I am very impressed. The book is very detailed and full of valuable insights and tips that no doubt come from the extensive experience of the author.

XSLT is covered by many general XML books and there are a few books dedicated to it but when one start to use XSLT for complex real-life application often these books fall short. For instance, many books do not satisfactorily explain how to deal with namespaces, or white space or how to implement recursion.

Some of the examples given in the book are great as well: producing svg, rtf, pdf and documentation for the stylesheet. I also like the fact that the author is aware of XSLT 2.0 (currently a W3C working draft) which is not the case for many others xslt books and the fact that he spends some time covering vendor extensions. Generally I find it to be the most comprehensive reference contained in a single book.

The only downside of this book is that it is catered toward advanced readers. I do not recommend this book for somebody new to XML and XSLT. I think it would be hard to grasp the concepts using only this book as it comes right in the meat of the matter. For beginners I would rather recommend to start with the XSLT book from O'Reilly (ISBN: 0596000537) which is an easier read, to be later complemented by O'Reilly's XSLT coockbook (ISBN: 0596003722) which is also excellent.

Rating:
Summary: I finally understand XSLT
Review: Okay, I suppose the weenies who say you have to know XML to understand this book are right. So, yeah, if you don't know XML, go to remedial school and learn it. Maybe I'm being kind of tough, but the truth is, if you're a Java programmer, or a C programmer, or a Javaascript programmer, this author knows how to talk to you. He tells you how XSL is different than OOO programming. And the differences are huge. No simple iterations and loops here, no dynamic variables, no anything you're used to, and this author explains it all in a way that makes sense. This book is absolutely the most comprehensive beginner-to-advanced-level book on XSL I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. If you want straight reference, go to Michael Kay's book. If you want to actually learn the language, this is your book.

Rating:
Summary: Sad, sad, sad!
Review: This is just another disturbing computer science book that has never been competently edited. Very verbose, but the real oddity is the lack of meaningful words, or any words, to explain syntax when it is obviously needed. I was really sorry that I waisted my money and time reading this book after reading positive reviews. Never again will I make a purchase on so few reviews. Look for similarity in negative comments to find the truth about books in reviews.