A Disappointment From O'Reilly.

This book is one of the most frustrating technical books I have ever read. The fact that it is from O'Reilly just makes it doubly insulting. The author doesn't bother to explain concepts. He just lists out the syntax for the various elements without bothering to explain how the instruction works. This book might be useful as an XSLT reference but it is useless as a learning tool. I totally agree with the other reviews of this book about the "huge honking examples" To give you an idea of how bad it is, the first XSLT example in this book is the obligatory "Hello World" example which is less than 20 lines. The second example is 3 pages long and uses concepts that have not been introduced at all!! The book also suffers from too many forward references. He keeps mentioning concepts that have no relation to the topic at hand. Sure, it might be great for completeness, but it just gets in the way when you're trying to learn a new concept and he keeps throwing additional, esoteric (by his own admission) stuff at you. In my opinion this is a very poorly written book.

Other Reviews

• My favorite XSLT reference
• Well organised chapters but be prepared to persevere if you're a beginner
• Its actually a good book
• A book I really use regularly
• A Disappointment From O'Reilly.