Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself XSLT in 21 Days

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just can't understand why there is no rating for the book and the book is priced so low. I am a VB developer of 6 yrs experience and am in the process of learning XML and all its related technologies. I tried to read books on XSLT by different authors and was frustrated by the advanced approach taken by different authors on the subject. I tried reading Jeni Tennison's XSLT. Didn't find it useful. Kay's XSLT has a lot of information but it was written as a reference. If you are new to XSLT read this book (not Kay's book) to get your feet wet and then with some knowledge read Kay's book. Never mind Tennison's book.

Some PROs and CONs...

Pros:
Topic flows very well. Author was able to explain each topic without asking reader to refer to upcoming forward chapters. Best part of this book are the examples. They are relevant and short and sweet enough to understand. Best of all, there are lots of examples. The author doesn't just slap them on the page and tell you to figure it out yourself. The author walks the reader thru them.

Cons:
Some areas reads like a technical manual.. causing me to reread sentences over and again. But that said, the book still comes across as tutorial friendly (You figure that out.).

Comparisons:
I rate the book 5 stars. I own Beginnning XSLT 2.0 by Tennison, XSLT 2.0 by Kay, and Mastering XSLT by White. My opinion is that XSLT in 21 days is the best book to get you to learn it the quickest because of the author's superb examples.

Best book to start out with XSLT;
quickly takes you to the point where you can put knowledge from the book to work;

ALSO - it is very easy to follow the Book on the road BECAUSE it explains exactly what each line of code in examples does;

Very thourough analysis and not much mumbo-jambo (as in xslt for dummmies book)

If you know absolutely nothing about XSLT, this is the book for you. Very straightforward. I got through the first week (7 chapters) in about a day. You could easily read and understand most of the content in this book in less than a few days. Great for anyone wanting to pick up the language quickly. For advanced users, this is probably not your book.

There isn't much to say, other than this book is a great choice for someone who knows xml and need to learn and use xslt quickly. I usually don't go for the "in 21 days" type books because I'm worried it might be too quick and novice like. However this title is well written, with each chapter going over another area of xslt in the proper sequence. There are plenty of examples to guide you when writing your own transformations. The index makes it easy to find what you need, but I'd recommend going chapter by chapter as quickly as possible if you are confident with programming in scripting/web languages. You can do the whole thing in 7 days if you like.

At this point this book and the W3.org site that hosts the xml official specification documents (xsl, xslt, xpath) is all I need. FYI, I'm developing an application in Visual Studio .NET 2003 with C# and using this environement to author and test xslt. Too bad Visual Studio won't validate xslt until you do the actual transformation in code. Oh well. Enjoy...

I had a task to finish related to XPATH but to get better picture on the project I needed a better understanding on XSL and I needed to understand really quickly. This book was very help full. I recommend this to anyone who is planning on learning on XSL. Only complain I have is that, Some sections I felt like its a manual rather than a book that explains the logic of it. But most part this is not the case.

I have finally found a book on XSLT that is strong on fundamentals and easy to grasp. The author seems to know the stumbling blocks a person would encounter and has wisely focused on those areas.

The book is quite detailed but progresses in manageable steps. There is a short project at the end of every week, which tackles a real world problem using the topics covered during that week.

Highly recommended!

This is the XSLT book I look for when I have an XSLT question. While the title makes it sound like a beginner's book (and it certainly can fill that role), I find it very useful as an advanced user's reference as well.

The book is easy to understand. There are plenty of examples and the exercise help reinforce what you learnt. The two negatives are: it's not XSLT 2.0 and the printing and binding of the book is poor. It is still a good way to learn XSLT. It would be great to have a study group guide.

No matter how well-written, this book is years out-of-date It is copyrighted 2002, and only covers XSLT and XPath 1.0.

XSLT and XPath 2.0 were officially adopted several years ago (2007?), and some products started using it based on draft standards a couple of years before that. There are significant differences that I will need to apply in my XML transformations, so this book is going back. I wish I had not been satisfied enough by the positive reviews to not notice the copyright date nor lack of mention of XSLT 2.0.