Rating: 
Summary: Clear, Comprehensive, Beautifully Written
Review: Terrific book!! Harold is up there with Bruce Eckel and Martin Fowler as my favorite computer writers. My only disappointment is that I expected the book to include the extensive examples I saw online in Harold's XML Bible. It looks as if O'Reilly made the authors cut a lot of material that would have been helpful. In particular, there were no examples of the use of $variables, the key() function, and extensions. More about schemas would have helped, too. But these are minor irritations- the book is great.
Rating:
Summary: Much more than good value for money
Review: The authors managed to compress an amazing amount of information in a very small amount of space, without affecting readability. Including coverage of XML, DTD, Namespaces, XSL, Xpath, Xlinks, DOM and much more, including Schemas (missing from previous edition). As a bonus we get reference for XML, Schemas, Xpath, XSLT, DOM and SAX. Much more than good value for money, it's a real bargain. Just not recommended to absolute newbies
Rating:
Summary: Powerful markup language.
Review: The book is a dense tutorial on XML as well as a useful day-to-day reference, but this book is not an introductory tutorial because of its relatively fast pace. Topics include XML history Document Type Definitions (DTDs), Namespaces Internationalization XML-based data formats, XHTML, XSL, XPath, XLink, XPointer, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Document Object Model (DOM) Simple API for XML (SAX).Given the complexity and incredible potential of this powerful markup language, it is a given that every serious developer using XML for data or text formatting and transformation will need a comprehensive, easy-to-access desktop reference in order to take full advantage of XML. After reading a good intro this excellent book should also find its place at any developers bookshelf. FinancialNeeds.com
Rating: 
Summary: Worst explanation of XML itself, bad presentation
Review: The first 3 chapters are explained so wage that you really do not get any introduction to XML. No direct benifits of XML are explained. You feel to stop reading this book. I forcibly continued to the next chapters.... DTD chapter is OK but not practical. Namespaces chapter is so badly explained that I just can not explain in words. One should read that chapter and decide themselves of how to express that bad explanation. I am not finding words to explain. THE IMPORTANT POINT IS "THEY USE UNKNOWN WORDS SUCH AS XSLT, XLink, XPath BEFORE EXPLAINING WHAT THEY ARE". In the very first chapter they explained all these in 2 lines without any meaning. I really did not understand what they are trying to explain. They use XLink, XPath etc in previous chapters and explain what they are in the next chapters. So, really you dont understand what they are using in previous chapters. Simply, very badly written. It is complete waste of money purchasing this book. Moreover, one of the authors might have written some classical suspense novels. His explanation of subject was always comparing with something imaginatory and put you in lot of trouble. Especially first few chapters.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful reference
Review: The Nutshell series of books from O'Reilly have a special section of my desk established for them; no other set of books condenses so much information for reference. This book is no exception to this fact. Before I continue, please avoid buying an O'Reilly Nutshell book expecting it to teach you about the topic it is intended for. As far as I've worked with them, these books are not intended as a do-all be-all that other references want to be. The information introducing you to XML is sparse, so if you don't know anything about XML, get another book. I recommend XML: A Primer by Simon St. Laurent; it is an excellent learning tool, and though it doesn't go into all the detail the XML standard can go into (no book I've found can do such), it provides the user with understanding of XML. XML in a Nutshell is what I use when I've forgotten how to use a certain aspect of XML detail. As a reference and a second book on XML, nothing comes close.
Rating:
Summary: Stellar XML book
Review: The nutshell series really can't be beat. This book on XML is no exception. If you need to learn, from the ground up, any aspect of XML, this book will explain it to you in a clear, concise way. From 'what is XML?' to doing transforms using XSLT, this book covers all of the bases you will need to know to get up and running in XML. Where most other XML books skim over topics such as namespaces and how to write XML in different character encodings, this nutshell book explains these topics just as thoroughly as the sections on DTD's, XSLT and XPATH. (I particularly found the XPATH reference section to be useful.) This book is well worth the money for it's clarity and the fact that it doesn't shy away from the nitty-gritty details.
Rating: 
Summary: The type of book you shouldn't buy.
Review: The text of this book is decent, but this is simply reprinting standards with some examples thrown in as frosting. This is the type of stuff you can download from the W3 web site. Added to which, the XML standards are still a work in progress, so linking to the W3 site is a better way to stay current with these technologies than a printed book.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book for the above average programmer
Review: This book assumes some knowledge of programming semantics. Like many OReilly books, the examples are hard to follow and loosely coupled. The overall standard of the book is high and needs high level of attention of the reader to grasp fully. If you need a good understanding of XML in theory, go for this book. But if you need more practical and concise examples, which most readers prefer look for other books.
Rating:
Summary: Worst explanation of XML itself, bad presentation
Review: This book continues the Nutshell tradition of putting a lot of information into a well-written, well organized format. The first 330 pages give a useful summary of each of the core XML standards along with short but illustrative examples. The writer's did an excellent job of covering the technical details of each technology and explaining where that technology could be applied. The final 220 pages are a good reference of the different tags and attributes of each standard. The reference also includes one of the best breakdowns of Unicode character sets I have found in a printed book.
Rating:
Summary: Well-organized information in a compact format
Review: This book continues the Nutshell tradition of putting a lot of information into a well-written, well organized format. The first 330 pages give a useful summary of each of the core XML standards along with short but illustrative examples. The writer's did an excellent job of covering the technical details of each technology and explaining where that technology could be applied. The final 220 pages are a good reference of the different tags and attributes of each standard. The reference also includes one of the best breakdowns of Unicode character sets I have found in a printed book.
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