XML: A Beginner's Guide: Go Beyond the Basics with Ajax, XHTML, XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 and XQuery

I highly recommend this title. There is something for everyone regardless of your level of expertise.

I found the book easy to read and informative. The code is simple but get the point across. The writing style is conversational, but I like that in a book. Moreover, it is not Microsoft centric as some have suggested. I have read over a dozen XML books and I found that this was the best one so far.

With "Go Beyond the Basics with ... XQuery" in its title, I was hoping the book would provide details on how to use XQuery. Unfortunately, the book devotes only six pages to the subject, almost three of which are just a list of functions (i.e., no actual analysis or demonstrations on how to use them). I have not reviewed the rest of the book, but if you're looking for help with XQuery, this is not the source.

This book is a dreadful mix of repetitive, redundant code chunks and a strained chatty style of writing. It will leave most readers determined never to go near XML again. Indeed, nowhere in the book are reasons why you would wish to use it. But worse is that the book focuses on Internet Explorer exclusively, including Active-X and Microsoft's non-standard brand of the DOM. Under the aegis of XHTML Transitional it introduces beginners to the likes of the "popular" <font> tag with all its long-deprecated attributes, not to mention many other deprecated tags, inline JavaScript event handlers, and other aspects more suited to the state of markup in 1999 than to 2009 - the year of publication.During the course of the book there is no signal to the reader that this or that code approach is proprietary and not standard. If beginners wish to learn standards-compliant, interoperable code and where and why you might want to deploy it, they should give this book a wide berth.I'm sorry to have to write a negative review - rare for me.

A réserver à ceux qui partent de zéro sur le sujet et qui veulent un aperçu assez basique de la galaxie XML à prix maudique (en occasion). Les professionnels devront le lire en diagonale pour ne pas s'endormir.