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Rating: 
Summary: Good and Practical
Review: Although this book didn't go quite as in depth as I would have liked it to, it was well layed out and had a lot of practical examples. Everything in it was easy to follow and focused on making the technology work instead of delving into the techie jargon about the theory behind it. This book won't make you an expert, but will give you enough to be able to start plugging this stuff into your projects pretty quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Good and Practical
Review: Although this book didn't go quite as in depth as I would have liked it to, it was well layed out and had a lot of practical examples. Everything in it was easy to follow and focused on making the technology work instead of delving into the techie jargon about the theory behind it. This book won't make you an expert, but will give you enough to be able to start plugging this stuff into your projects pretty quickly.
Rating: 
Summary: Good! And rapid.
Review: I never expected so much useful information into such a small book. Good books don't sell by weight or page count.
I found this book concise and clear (this man knows how to teach). It sure doesn't explain everything about the subject, but it gives the big picture, with an impressive number of details too.
Ideal to start working in small time.
NOTE about who is this book for:
As title state, this book teaches how to use the XML features of SQL Server 2000, not how to use SQL2000, so if you don't know SQL Server you better read something else first.
From the XML XSL XPath X... side, this book is also for novices as it has a very good appendix that teaches all you need to understand the book.
Rating: 
Summary: It's about time
Review: Let's see. SQL Server 2000 has been out for quite some time now. One of the neat features of SQL Server 2000 is XML. Yet, all of the tomes written so far offer nothing more than a cursory glance.Note, that I am not criticizing the authors of these works for this oversight. Much of the blame lies in Microsoft not having the XML features complete until the very latest betas (release candidates actually, but who is counting). One of the features with the most promise, updategrams, has not been covered at all (except a mention here and there and a snippet of how the XML is formatted). Also of note is the documentation of the FOR XML EXPLICIT mode. The 13 pages on this subject give a good intro to get up and going. You will still have to pound out the queries (and probably cuss a bit), but it is nice to finally have some documentation (even the books online were poor here). A word of warning. This is not a book about how to use SQL Server 2000. It is a very specialized work on SQL Server 2000 and XML. If you want to learn SQL Server 2000, it would be best to look elsewhere. I would like to give the book a five star rating, but there are areas where I feel the material is a bit too thin. On the other hand, this work is enough to be worth the money spent if you are developing in SQL Server 2000 and XML.
Rating:
Summary: Make sure you buy the 2nd Edition
Review: Most of the reviews here seem to relate to the first edition (which was admittedly kind of short). The book has been updated, and the second edition covers new stuff like XSD Schemas, Diffgrams, SOAP Virtual Names, and all the other SQLXML 3.0 features. I found the book really useful, and easy to read. The examples are great and the concepts are all well explained. Definitely worth buying if you're planning to use SQL Server's XML functionality.
Rating: 
Summary: A blatant ripoff
Review: There is little here beyond what is in the Microsoft documentation. And $60 for less than 300 pages? Even with the big price and the scanty page count, they still find it necessary to refer you to the CD to see the code. The Wrox press SQL Server XML book is much meatier, more up to date, and ten bucks less.
Rating:
Summary: A book for Beginner to Intermediate Level
Review: This is a great book for a beginner of SQL Server 2000 and XML. Starts off from scratch and walks you thru every aspect of XML and building a complete XML enabled web pages. This is a good book for any one that is looking to find over all information that can give glimpse into the features of SQL Server and be able to utilize to build XML-enabled data-pages.
Rating:
Summary: Pay first class fare, fly coach.
Review: While the author does an OK job explaining the subject matter, I don't see why anyone should spend $60 on this tiny book when you can find other books that sell for the same price or less and cover XML and a lot more. Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming from Wrox has two very good chapters on XML in about 100 pages, and *1300* pages more covering just about everything else related to SQL Server, *all for the same price*. There are other books that concentrate on the XML part only and sell for $10-$15 less but I have not read them. And of course, there's always SQL Server Books Online, which is free if you already have SQL Server 2000 installed. If I pay first class fare, I expect the meal and the wine, not just the peanuts.
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