Professional Xsl

I'm a developer currently working on a large-scale multi-platform project, which uses XML and XSL extensively.The book seems to cover all aspects of XSL in great depth, with plenty of code to illustrate how to apply the techniques the authors introduce.As a programmer used to more traditional procedural languages, I hadn't realised the paradigm shift that working with XSL entails, but this book has kick-started my enthusiasm for XSL, and has shown me what it can really do. The stylesheets I'm writing now are going down very well at work, and one in particular completes its transformation almost 50 times quicker than the code we had previously (no exageration)!I'd have to disagree with one of the previous reviewers who says it is concerned solely with MSXML!! Although it does cover this technology in one chapter, this isn't a surprise as the book tries cover all aspects of the XSL field. Most of the book is concerned with platform-agnostic tools and techniques, based on the current W3C standards. We use a lot of java in my company, especially as servlets, and this book was pretty indispensible when I was trying to get my stylesheet to work in tandem with servlets and JSP. The one gripe I have is that the book is rather skimpy on Formatting Objects, and if that's your thing you might be disappointed.Nevertheless, I'd recommend this book to anyone seriously working with XSL, and although it's not a book for novices, it's an excellent reference that you'll keep coming back to.

This book has 10 authors and it shows. The highlights for me were chapter 4 & 5, which outline some very interesting advanced techniques, and chapter 8, which has a detailed performance tuning case study. I was disappointed in their treatment of XSL-FO in chapter 9. It's difficult to write about a moving target, but I thought Eliotte Rusty Harold's XML Bible did a much better job, and his second edition will be out shortly. I was also disappointed that the authors didn't address grouping problems (Muenchian grouping, etc.). Overall, the book does seem to target the MSXML platform and goes into a lot of depth with that product, though other products are covered. The book does concentrate on portable XSL and discusses the uses and shortcomings of proprietary extensions. Overall, Professional XSL is a good reference, more so if you concentrate on Microsoft platforms, but you'll probably want to supplement it with additional reference material.