The basics, clear and there
After stumbling around trying to a handle on XSLT, I finally realized that a big chunk was not being explained within the XSLT books. Most of the XSLT books bring XPath statements out of hat like a magician's rabbit -- there is no way one can figure out what to do in any given situation. Thanks to this book, what was mystery meat is now clear as a bell. In the first nine pages, a dozen questions were answered. I don't see how you can do serious XPath and XSLT without this book in hand.
Comprehensive and complete coverage of XPath
This book is a must have for anybody working with XPath, even XPath 1.0. Michael Kay starts at the beginning with a complete review of the underlying concepts behind XPath and continues through with all the details of how to use XPath day-by-day. Along the way he points out a lot of gotchas that you're sure to get burned by if you're not aware of them. Throughout he carefully explains what is applicable to version 1.0 vs. 2.0 and highlights the breaking changes between the two versions.
Beware...this series is among the poorest examples of instructional writing.
While I did NOT read very much of this specific title (XPath 2.0) I was extremely disappointed after trying to read several other of these WROX series on XML, XSLT, XPATH, etc.. I had made the mistake of buying the whole series and trying to wade through these exceptionally poorly edited books. While I'm sure that these writers know their subject...they truely do NOT have a clue as to how to write cohesive, instructional material. If you want to find much better writing on this subject, look for some zoo animals on the cover instead of photos of the authors. I really felt cheated having bought the whole series of these WROX books. This is the first time that I have felt this enraged about poor writing...
Very in-depth
This is, as you would expect from Michael Kay, an excellent and extremely in-depth work on XPath 2.0. From the basics of the object and typing model, through the syntax and into a function reference. In my opinion most average XSLT users could probably get away with the XPath coverage in Michael's other book XSLT 2.0 for Programmers. But for those implementing XPath, or who are using it as a central architectural mechanism, you will want the in-depth coverage in this book.
Written by an expert for the wannabes.
This book is destined to be the prefered reference. It is well written in great depth and detail. You will however almost definitely want the XSLT 2.0 by the same author if you are new to this area as the examples in this book are more extensive with case studies, as opposed to the code snippets you'll find in here.
The book is not a tutorial, but instead aims at complete and detailed coverage and describing the differences between 1.0 and 2.0.
(10 reviews)
