XML in Plain English

First of all, this is a book for people who know their stuff and need to be able to go an extra mile without spending an hour wading through deteriorating Web. Even tutorial part is for people who know and understand a lot and that is how it should be for a book which is already too heavy.Things that could be better - information on case sensitivity of Xpath functions and patterns, marking up which stylesheet elelments are in CSS1, which in CSS2 and which in neither, more complete table of Unicode character references (to include full ASCII for example including interpunction), 8-bit Character set tables and mapping to Unicode, font, leading, and even margins could be a level smaller to make book thinner, lighter and more dense for everyday use, the "Releted Properties,Objects etc." could go to a small print to both not eat up the space and be faster to spot when needed.

I have to agree with Annette Truong (below) on this one, it's a great book. After going thru every XML book in Borders I finally settled on this one as the most comprehensive and UP-TO-DATE reference I could find. (There is so much xml stuff out there that is just out of date!) ... Make no mistake, this is not an xml wet-nursing book. This is for people who are familiar with (although not necessarily accomplished in) xml. It packs a lot of punch into each page and although it is primarily a reference it has plenty of examples and tutorials.

Yikes! I'm surprised to see such poor reviews on this book, which I consider to be one of the best XML reference books I've purchased. The title is misleading, it should be called, "The most comprehensive XML/XSL/XPath/XPointer/XLink/Style-Sheet reference book you'll ever see."A hold-your-hand tutorial it is not. An information packed grammar (EBNF form no less!) & syntax reference on XML, DTD's, XSL/XSLT, XPath, XPointer, XLink, and Style-sheets it is. The information density of this book is astounding. Tutorial books you use once, reference books you use forever. My job required me to learn XML, XSLT & XPath. The learning I did online and it made me realize I needed a reference book; I consider this book to be one of the best deals I've gotten on this subject. When I found it I immediately recognized it as a diamond among XML books, which I have confirmed as I use it every time I work with XML.Poor points: although this book purports to include a tutorial, it is very brief (the last 1/4 of the book). The tutorial section is more of a refresher if you've already learned the concepts in detail elsewhere. The usage examples in the reference section of the book (the first 3/4) are a bit weak and not always enlightening. There is a lot of "related info" cross references that doesn't seem useful to me.This is the kind of book that will remain on your desk long after the "XML for Dummies" books have been digested and are collecting dust. I would definitely reccomend this reference book for the serious XML/XSL/XPath/XPointer/XLink user as a comprehensive reference guide.

Think of this book like you would think of a dictionary -- not great reading material, but good to look stuff up in. Please do not think that this is a book for beginners. Like a dictionary, you need to have some idea of the language in order to get any use of it. If you are a current user of XML, then you will find this book to be a great reference to have for those times when you juuuuust can't remember the syntax (how to write a command so the computer understands it). After the syntax are good examples that put the command in perspective.

Very helpful for beginning XML. Starts at the beginning explaining what XML is for. Also, this is a great reference of all the tags and syntax. I bought two books for XML before this and didn't like them too much. I haven't used them since I got this one. I really like this book!