Do you want to learn to speak XQuery?
This is simply a great introduction to XQuery. In general this is a book rich on examples. I used this to test every other query, and gain a more thorough understand of the particular topic. The best way to learn a new language is to practice - right ?
Besides the examples bit, I think this is a well written book that explains the more academic content in straight forward manner. About half of the book is references, which has a lot of examples. My personal favorite section is the "Idioms" part of Chapter 10 that gives some clever solutions that I wouldn't have come up with myself.
Good contents, bad binding
This very good book gets only 1 star because of the poor quality of binding. A few months of (admittedly heavy) use is all it took for individual pages and whole sections to start falling out.
Otherwise, I generally agree with the previous review. It's a thorough introduction to the XQuery language with extensive reference and numerous examples. If it wasn't for the horrible production values I'd give it 5 stars.
Concepts & Practical Programming
Too many development books are slanted towards either concepts or practical, in-the-trenches development. This book manages to balance both by giving not only the what's and why's, but the how to's, and does so in a readable and highly credible manner. The discussion about why Xquery instead of Xpath, XSLT or even direct access through another programming language shows both the strengths and some weaknesses of Xquery. This discussion extended into documents, databases, the state of the Xquery specification, and culminated in a essential types, and types you will not need. This is both conceptual and practical.
For the developer who wants to get up-to-speed with (or refine skills in) Xquery, this book goes deep into every facet, using concepts, concrete examples, and code. More importantly, the author's extensive experience is shown in Chapter 11, which covers problem areas and common points of confusion. This short chapter will prove invaluable to new developers. I also liked the chapter on query optimization, and the rich reference material in the appendices, which is almost half of this book.
If you want to learn Xquery, hone existing skills, or step back and see the big picture this book is the best one in my opinion. Expect in-depth technical information, and expect it to be provided by someone who understands developers and provides the code to make it real.
Excellent language introduction and reference
This is a well written introductory and reference work on XQuery. It's primarily an introductory work, the first 260 pages are introduction and the final 240 are a reference that is organized as an appendix. The writing is solid, and it by no means panders to the reader, so you should be prepared to read over sections multiple times to completely understand the topic. I can't penalize the book for this because the topic is fairly complex.
On the downside there could be more in the way of real world examples in the text as they explain so of the more complex topics. It easier for the reader to retain the information if they knew why they would be using the language feature in the real world. In addition the book needs a section on existing tools and support for XQuery.
Strong chapters are chapters five and six which cut to the heart for the FLWOR expression syntax.
Overall this is a fine introductory work that could use some expansion and some more focused explanations.
Good book and a fascinating topic
This is a well written introductory and reference work on XQuery. It's primarily an introductory work, the first 260 pages are introduction and the final 240 are a reference that is organized as an appendix.The writing is solid, and it by no means panders to the reader, so you should be prepared to read over sections multiple times to completely understand the topic. I can't penalize the book for this because the topic is fairly complex.
On the downside there could be more in the way of real world examples in the text as they explain so of the more complex topics. It easier for the reader to retain the information if they knew why they would be using the language feature in the real world. In addition the book needs a section on existing tools and support for XQuery.
Strong chapters are chapters five and six which cut to the heart for the FLWOR expression syntax.
Overall this is a fine introductory work that could use some expansion and some more focused explanations.
