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Summary: The best XML book on the market
Review: Having purchased and read 10 books on XML in the past year this book was the best of the breed. I have also recently purchased the freshly upgraded Professional XML also by WROX and again WROX rocks!
Rating: 
Summary: Good but..not excellent.
Review: This books is satisfactory..The first 10 chapters are good, the Schema Chapter 11 forgot how to tell the XML document which Schema do you want to use (This is a confusing figure it out chapter). The XML Databases chapter is poor, only showing examples with SQL Server (What about standard SQL databases, not the MS one).The book is almost 900 pages but only 500 are material, the final 400 are case studies and appendixes. However this is not a bad book, but is not the best way to start learning XML. XML is not the replacement of HTML. If you want to write XML to convert it to HTML with XSL then you will take twice the time to create them, not an intelligent move. The true power comes when you want to interchage data between applications, not only web (you can use it with desktop applications with C++, Delphi, Java, VB, ASP or any other programming way) or to talk with a web server sending an XML request and receiving an XML response that you can parse with DOM or SAX. Recommended but you will need other books to go on.
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Summary: Solid Intro to XML and related technologies
Review: Having worked with XML for over a year, I was skeptical when a colleague recommended this book as an introduction for XSLT. But, I found it an excellent read. Using this book, I've built a small portal framework that uses XML and XSLT to seperate the logic and presentation layers. I also took the time to read the rest of the book and found it accurate and clear. Especially the part about namespaces.Now, if Wrox would just do something about these ugly covers! I'll look in a mirror when I want to see a computer geek. :-)
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Summary: I'll have to agree -- possibly best beginning XML book
Review: I want to learn how to use XML to it's fullest extent, and this book provides a solid foundation. It expanded my view of XML from "just another web techology" to one that I can use for data transfers between data bases, legacy systems, and web sites. Improvements can be made, however. The chapter on the SAX parser requires clarification. Setting the CLASSPATH variable for java is really important, and the author neglected to cover it for Windows 95/98 users. But, when I got the CLASSPATH right, the examples worked perfectly. The author should also cover perl and ASP interfaces since they are popular programming languages. Now that I've gotten Beginning Perl under my belt, I can move onto the more advanced XML books by Wrox.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best Intro book to XML
Review: Hi, I have been looking at number of XML books and I recently found the "Beginning XML" from Wrox which was really by far the best I have seen. The book is very clearly explained. One of the thing that I particularly like about it is that the table of content is well-designed. While this may sounds trivial, it is not the case for many other Intro XML books I have seen, who typically tend spend too much time on the genesis of XML and little if any to topics of interest to programmers (The XML DOM or SAX for example). For this reason, I think that this book is the right book to get started. Perhaps complemented sometimes along the line by a another book dealing more in-depth with the specificities of the programming environment you are dealing with (such as the Java xml, VB xml or asp xml books by the same publisher). The one thing that I was lukewarm about were some of the case studies: while designing a threaded discussion board with XML is ingenious, it is also one of the most difficult and inefficient ways that I could think of doing it. The book cover indicates that this books is aimed at more or less every user. In my opinion, the book is aimed at experience web developers (knowing at least HTML) who understand basic programming concepts and have some programming experience (with anything). It does not on the other hand require the user to be fluent at all in Java, VB, ASP or Javascript for instance (although readers who have such knowledge will appreaciate some of the examples).
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Summary: Please think before you buy.
Review: Unlike most Wrox books, this one is very confusing. The topics are scattered everywhere and you have to look all over the place to get an idea of what is going on. For beginners, get Microsoft or xml by example than go straight to Professional XML. Skip this one, it will only confuse you.
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Summary: Good book yet a little confusing
Review: This book is a good introduction book on XML subject. I started reading this book with little knowledge about XML, and after completing it I felt I learned a lot. Yet this book is a little confusing at the beginning. I finished the first 9 chapters and really got very confused. Then I revisited the topics and got many problem clarified. The support for this book is very good, I sent the support team a few e-mails and got responses very quickly.
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Summary: Great book for Beginning XML Only...
Review: ..however if you are interested in combining VB and SQL Server with XML then get the ASP XML Wrox book which gives better examples of the integration of XML with the current technologies.
Rating:
Summary: a confused book
Review: The book is trying to incorporate lots of stuff, in the process confusing the programmers. I have lots of experience with VB and ASP and the reason I bought this book was because I thought that I can improve upon my internet skills and also because I understood that XML was a relatively easy technology to learn. But the author in this book is just introducing the programmer to various xml related technologies without explaining clearly what is for what and what is deemed as useful for average programmer. Maybe I was confused when I bought this book!!
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Summary: A "must have" for web designers
Review: If you have been designing web pages for at least the last couple of years, you have probably been beaten over the head with XML articles. Everyone saying that XML is the "wave of the future". Actually, it is the "wave of the present". If you are a web designer and you still don't use XML, you are behind the curve. This book will catch you up quickly and help you understand how XML will organize you pages and save you time. Clearly written, this book was an ease to read. If you aren't a web designer, don't start with this subject. Learn your HTML and then come back and get this book.
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