Very good book!
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.
Great way to learn XSLT
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.
Great Book for Beginners
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.
Fantastic Examples
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.
Excellent place to start
This book works. It does, however, assume that you have a meaningful level of computer proficiency. This is probably a safe assumption for anyone intending to go spelunking in XML files and performing transformations on same.
To complete the book's lessons, you'll need to download and install one of the free XSLT parsing engines listed in the book. Alternatively, I used the jEdit free text browser and its associated XSLT plugin to run the examples.
I don't believe in assigning five stars, or I would have for this book.
