Customer Reviews

XSLT: Working with XML and HTML

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

 

 

Just to put my two cents in perspective: As an untrained wanna-be hacker, I'm always getting in over my head with programming languages. I know just enough about scripting and XML to get into trouble. The problem with most books for me is that somewhere they assume that I understand something I don't, with the result that I inevitably hit a rather hard wall.

No such problem (so far with) with this book. For my purposes, it's one of the most successful programming books I've used. I think it works because:

- The author has focused on XML-HTML transformation of web documents, using a simple, non-Microsoft-centric approach. This is exactly what I want to do with my web site. Most books on XSLT try to cover everything, from B2B data to Braille to WAP.

- Don't let the name fool you - this guy writes more clearly than most authors with Anglo surnames. He's a joy to read.

Serious programmers should note that this is not about server-based enterprise solutions. It's a low tech approach for the rest of us.

The only reason I didn't give the book five stars was the incredible number of mistakes in it. I have been studying XSLT for some time now and bought this book to fill out my knowledge and to evaluate it for use by my team of web developers. Khun Yee Fung's approach is much cleaner in many ways from the "XSLT Programmer's Reference." His method of showing how the transformation nodes get copied into the result tree before processing is very enlightening. His writing style is generally clean and his examples are very carefully expanded from simple to complex.

If you are looking for a reference guide then this book is not "it." If you are knowledgeable about XML and are just starting to learn about XSLT, this book will get you up and running quickly. Make sure you take the coding examples with salt, as they and the text contain many mistakes. There are cases where the XSLT programs don't exactly match the example XML. There are cases where the XSLT is missing an important piece (or is subtly wrong). In nearly all cases careful reading of the text should bring you to the proper code, regardless of the examples.

I have not studied the code on the included CD to see if the mistakes from the text are reproduced there. Often with a technical book the CD is produced much later in the development cycle so the mistakes may have been caught. If this is so, the web site for the book doesn't mention it.

I could not have gotten through my project without this book. I had a basic understanding of simple location paths but when my project became complex I was stuck until I got this book. This book fully explained location paths in a manner which I could understand. Highly recommended. I also bought Michael Kay's XSLT Programmer's Reference but Fung's book really explains how the XSLT processor works. Kay's book is still good for quick lookup and reference. I'm glad I have both but if I had to choose just one I would choose Fung's because I hadn't found the information anywhere else.

This is the most beginner-friendly book on XSLT I am aware of. It is written in simple language devoid of XML infamous dreadful terminology. It implies neither the reader's significant Computer Science background, nor outstanding brain power. Explanations are as clear and simple as possible, with lots of illustrations. 1-star reviewers remarks about "cryptic writing" and "higher algebra" are egregiously misaddressed (though entertaining :).

I don't think anyone bothered to edit this book. The English is pretty poor, and the examples don't match up with what the author is describing. The book never tells you which example to refer to on the CD, and it also never presents you with a complete stylesheet written out.

The author also takes a lot of time to tell you how to do something, then the next page over he basically tells you to delete what you just did and do it another way - never telling you what the difference between the two methods are and why the second way makes better sense.

In addition, the author is way too general with his descriptions of concepts. For example: in describing the purpose of using the MODE attribute for the <xsl:template> tag, he says: "We specify the mode attribute because we don't want to get confused with the other template." Even the appendix doesn't adequately explain what the MODE attribute actually does.

After reading this book, I feel like I can only modify someone else's stylesheets, not create my own from scratch.

I don't recommend this book to anyone, and wish I'd been able to find something else instead. Unfortunately, there aren't very many XSLT books out there yet.

Uniquely efficient presentation of the topic. A necessary and sufficient description of the 20% of XSLT that is used in 80% of applications. Perfect use of extended graphics for the tree handling basics in Part II, which by itself justifies purchase. This is one of a handful of books I've run across in 20 years that takes the reader to an intermediate level in almost no time. (Frank Pagan's slim book on Formal Definition of Programming Languages is another.) Consensus among colleagues is that the Fung book for jump-start plus the Michael Kay (2nd ed) book for reference is the XSLT library to have. One wishes this author would write on other topics.

Valuable introduction to onscreen XML/XSLT development for beginners. Gives _some_ idea about building an XML-based Web site. I'd recommend using this book together with other sources.

However, emphasis on tree diagrams may be confusing when XML content is kept in relational database. Also, application developers will not find any suggestions on using XML in application code.

Having the Michael Kay book and with some XSL transformation experience under my belt, I sincerely wish I had this book earlier. XSL transformations operate unlike any other programming or document transformation language. For most of us, it is a jarring agony to learn.

The book starts at the basics in a non-abstract way (unlike the Kay book) and builds your knowledge from the simple to the complex. The author's real-world experience shows to great effect here. He will take an example and build on it, not only illuminating new techniques, but thereby showing the power of XSLt to transform the same data in multiple ways.

The CD is worth its weight in gold. It is very convenient to have the code on hand of course, but the author goes beyond that. You get each definition in the W3C specification accompanied by an example with suggestions to alter the example to deepen your understanding.

One weakness of the presentation is that readers are left to their own devices in downloading, installing, and learning a transformation engine to actually carry out experiments. This is a weakness in a book so superbly directed at the beginning and intermediate level.

By the way, the slap at the quality of English in this book is completely false and is probably what prompted me to write this review in the first place.

Nice job done!!! By examples and theory. I think this is a good book for beginners on XSL and XML (not much) who needs to use the XSL in a day or two. It explains a whole lot by giving increasive tutorial. I have not come acrosss any book on XSL that does this. Thanks Khun Yee Fung!!!

I felt frustrated after the first 100 pages. The writer completely lost me after I struggled thru from page 50 or so! He seemed more interested in starting off each chapter with quotes by Chuang Ji and I don't know how the words in the quotes related to the topic, though only the quotes seemed interesting than the presentation of XSLT by the author. The book started off nicely in simple English and things were placed in perspective. Examples of the various nodes were shown in diagrams too, but that alone spanned over 25 pages! Chapter 3 became an overview of the real world example of XSLT works, the Chapter 4 was what shredded me to pieces. From then on, the writer didn't seem interested in helping the reader understand XSLT in clear simple words, instead used cryptic language with jargon. Mr. Fung just failed to help readers to nail down the cryptic symbols in an otherwise easy XSL transformation process! Elizabeth Castro did a real wonderful job in her book on XML in explaining XSLT and XPath.