Customer Reviews

XSLT: Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

1. This is really a reference, not a tutorial. It does include a "no nonsense tutorial" which will guide you through the basic XSLT topics, but if you have no XML experience, start with one of the more basic Wrox offerings. (David Hunter's Beginning XML -- which I hear will be excellent -- is going to be released by Wrox early in June.)

2. If you are unclear on the purposes of XSLT, understand that it is a programming language for converting data, performing scripting tasks, etc. on the way to a pure HTML or XML layout. I only mention this because some developers seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that XSLT is an appropriate subject for graphic designers, perhaps because XSLT contains the word "style." Do NOT get this book for your design staff.

3. Not a major hurdle for most of us, but some implementations, such as Xalan, are not covered.

That aside, this is a fantastic book. Everything I can think of in the XSL arena is covered, including extending XSL. The author, Michael Kay, who was such a force on the Professional XML team, once again proves to be an excellent writer. The browser specific details are just what I needed to solve many of my real-world production problems. And I continue to be amazed at the speed with which Wrox gets these comprehensive volumes to press.

The well-balanced blend of highly technical details, precise and carefully crafted examples are made very agreeable by Michael Kay's outstanding writing style. No fluff, nor arcane technical hocus-pocus that leaves the reader dazzed and kerflumoxed. Althought this book is not a tutorial, I found it highly motivating for self-teaching.

The first 3 chapters explains a) what is XSLT b)how it works c)what makes it works (structure). It guides you clearly, in detail, trouhgt this crucial first example ("Greetings") so you're not stuck wondering HOW to make this stuff work. Explanations are to the point, and crucial relationships are put in context without verbosis.

Chapters 4 to 7 is the Reference section, the nitty-gritty details of each feature of XSLT. That'll help a lot when trying to fly on your own. This is followed by "Worked Examples" again beautifully explained.

Then, the tools. Not a mere URL reference to "Download this and you'll do just fine, mate!" but a hands-on guide to the nuts and bolts of each of them. Very helpful!

I read 7 books so far on XML/XSL. Kay's book is the gem that stands out way above from the crowd. A winner!

This is a truly outstanding book. Of the very many computer books I have read, this is one of the top 5.

As other reviews have correctly stated, this is neither a tutorial nor an introductory text. But if you have been working with XML/XSL for even a little while, the dearth of complete and accurate documentation becomes onerous. I have spent untold hours experimenting with variations of syntax to get the desired results, never really understanding what I was doing. After reading this book, so many of the mysteries and black magic incantations I had built developed now become clear.

This is a deeply detailed reference book, and it is very much written from the perspective of an author of an XSLT parser. You get innumerable details about all sorts of arcana. But once you get beyond some very simple stylesheets, I have found that you often need this kind of detail to help you understand exactly what is going on.

The heavy slogging thru the material is greatly aided by Mr. Kay's refreshing writing style. He completely avoids the fluff, illiteracy, or arrogance so common in technical writing. His language is precise, yet easy to read. Most commendable are his examples. Rather than the trivial, artificial or non-sensical example we often see, each example here (and there are LOTS of them) is well-crafted, well-explained, and relevant to a real-world task.

Another astounding fact is the relative sparseness of typos and errors. As an author myself, I know that computer publishers rush to print with all sorts of egregious errors that are very disruptive. Although I did encounter a very few errors in this book, Mr. Kay and Wrox are to be commended highly for a very professional first edition.

A monumental writing job, excellently done. This belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is seriously involved in XSL work.

I have read numerous texts on XML, some of which refer to XSLT in a passing way. This is the first book that fully documents and explains the usage of XSLT Most other texts rely on a single example to illustrate their message. Which is fine unless the example has nothing to do with your real life problem. Michael Kay takes the more difficult path of describing the subject through the use of abstract ideas, thereby applying the explanation to a wider realm of experience. The book is structured in a manner that I wish more authors would follow. The first part, chapters 1-3 explain the concepts of the XSLT language. This part, although challenging, is worth reading closely. Ample examples elucidate the concepts presented. Chapters 4-7 are a reference on the language itself. The information is precise and all encompassing. Chapters 8-10 present examples of using the language in real world situations, or as Kay states: "developing real industrial applications." If there is a fault to find, it would lie in the presentation of the XSLT products in chapter 10. A more in-depth description of the usage of Xalan, for example, would have been greatly appreciated. At the present time, to use this product you are armed with the API and that's about it. Getting a process up and running is still a challenge. But, given the state of the industry, it's not surprising that this area was not more fleshed out. In summation, I can only agree with the previous reviews and state that this is THE reference to have on XSLT.

This is a great book. It's loaded with examples, it is comprehensive in its coverage, and it conveys both the practical and philosophical aspects of this huge new revolution known as XML. The author has a wonderful explanation of how XSL was designed to not include an assignment operator. This is not the work of some dope just trying to waste paper and catch a ride on the latest wave.

The beware is that the author recommends his own XSLT processor (Saxon). It is good and I would encourage people to use it, but it does some really stupid things that could drive you crazy. For instance, if one of the files you stipulate on the command line cannot be found, it doesn't tell you that, it just throws the filename up on the screen instead of the output. Likewise, if you leave the <xsl:stylesheet> tag open, it will just say 'error processing stylesheet no more input'. These are but two examples. We also found that his implementation of the crucial document function doesn't work in his Java code, where the Apache projects did. It's a shame these kinds of things are in here because XSLT allows you to very quickly perform some incredibly sophisticated feats without killing yourself. Definitely buy, just proceed with caution once you start working with it.

You absolutely cannot, I repeat CANNOT live w/out this book if you need to work with XML, in otherwords, you canno live w/out it. Kay will save you hours of frustration with his extensive examples and thorough explanations of key topics such as the XSLT processing model, Expressions, XPath, Patterns, and other reference and programming material. Just the Design Patterns and Examples chapters alone are worth more than the book sells for. XSLT forces you not only to program differently but to think and conceptualize your problems and solutions differently, you'll learn to program without the need for variables and by the time you're done with a few examples you'll know more about recurssion than you ever thought you would know, you'll be glad you paid attention in your introductory programming classes in college, if not, you'll be glad you have Kay to help you. He also talks about the history of XSLT, the products available, and most importantly helps you understand what's going on behind the scenes of the technology. As Kay himself says, XLST is the SQL of XML, if you don't master these techniques you'll be lacking an essential part of the skillset needed to develop the applications of now() and tomorrow().... This book serves as a great reference as well as a guide, we've bought a bunch of copies at the office and most of them are nearly worn out, if you're like us and eat, breathe, and sleep XML, you can't do without XSLT....

Over the past year I have purchased about 5 different XML books. I bought each book because they had at least one chapter on XSL - most XML books had nothing. Finally, a book comes out the discusses in depth everything you wanted to know about XSL translations. I like the book because it covers all of the currently available XSL parsers. This book is excellent for the Web developer or programmer who is interested in using XML/XSL translations. The book is an excellent companion to Wrox's other XML book, "Professional XML."

XSLT is almost the official programming language of XML - in fact, it uses XML as its representation. Given the importance of XML, XSLT is going to be a critical tool at anyone's workbench sooner or later.

XSLT is also a hard language to work with. That's where this book comes in. When I needed to write an XML-based application of my own - one involving DocBook, HTML, and XSLT itself - XSLT was the natural choice, though a daunting one. Using only this book, I managed to pick up the XSLT programming model (hint: there is almost no such thing as flow of control) and get the job done. Kay's discussions of XML name spaces and other basics were part of what got the job done right.

This book should be on the shelf of every serious XML programmer. I don't know whether a programming beginner would get the full value from it, but experienced readers will find it dense, well-organized, and above all helpful.

First the bad news: it is one of hardest books to read and figure out. Lets just say that it is not nicely organized. I realize that this is a reference, but there's no way to find things by example -- say you're looking for how to extract some data using an ancestor axis, then applying some predicate to restrict the set of ancestors you look at and finally to print the number of children of such ancestors -- even though you may realize you've seen an example like this somewhere in the book (this one is concocted) it would take you forever to find it (if you can find it at all ;-(

That said, there are so few good, competent books on XSL that this is the best possible one out there so far. So, to that extent, if you're definitely going to have to work with XSL, you perhaps have to live with this book for now.

The scope and goal of the XSLT Programmer's Reference by Michael Kay is precisely defined and adhered to. It is indeed an excellent reference (as opposed to a tutorial) on the subject of XSLT version 1.0.

I have given 5 stars to only three other books in the past, and this was for what I regard to be truely remarkable contributions: Design Patterns (Gamma), OOCS2 (Meyer) and Concurrent Programming in Java (Lea). Whilst not as generally applicable as these works, Mr Kay's XSLT-PR deserves its five stars for sheer timeliness, accuracy and quality of writing - not to mention value for money.