Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: ...I bought this book in addition to Definitive XML Schema thinking there would be some great additional insights there. While this is a good book, there was nothing covered there that wasn't already in Walmsley's book, which I feel presented the subject more clearly.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for experienced developers
Review: Having recently read "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley I thought I'd learned all I needed to know about XML Schema. That book is more tutorial in tone and content, while this one quickly dispenses with the background material and gets into the technical details. In fact, by chapter 2 you're already developing a schema and the subsequent chapters drill deeper into the mechanics of XML Schema. I like the way each facet, factor and detail of XML schema is covered, including clear descriptions of data types, a direct linkage to XML-based databases, and all of the building blocks along the way. More importantly, the author provides multiple approaches to developing schemas, and sufficiently covers the syntactical requirements and specifications to allow you to become proficient in creating them for real applications. The book is fast-paced and you will need to be familiar with XML and its related vocabularies in order to follow this book. If you need a more introductory, tutorial-based book get "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley. However, if you understand the fundamentals of relational databases, are currently developing DTDs and understand XML, this book is better suited to your experience level and is the one I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Finally i understood XML schema
Review: Having recently read "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley I thought I'd learned all I needed to know about XML Schema. That book is more tutorial in tone and content, while this one quickly dispenses with the background material and gets into the technical details. In fact, by chapter 2 you're already developing a schema and the subsequent chapters drill deeper into the mechanics of XML Schema. I like the way each facet, factor and detail of XML schema is covered, including clear descriptions of data types, a direct linkage to XML-based databases, and all of the building blocks along the way. More importantly, the author provides multiple approaches to developing schemas, and sufficiently covers the syntactical requirements and specifications to allow you to become proficient in creating them for real applications. The book is fast-paced and you will need to be familiar with XML and its related vocabularies in order to follow this book. If you need a more introductory, tutorial-based book get "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley. However, if you understand the fundamentals of relational databases, are currently developing DTDs and understand XML, this book is better suited to your experience level and is the one I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for experienced developers
Review: Having recently read "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley I thought I'd learned all I needed to know about XML Schema. That book is more tutorial in tone and content, while this one quickly dispenses with the background material and gets into the technical details. In fact, by chapter 2 you're already developing a schema and the subsequent chapters drill deeper into the mechanics of XML Schema. I like the way each facet, factor and detail of XML schema is covered, including clear descriptions of data types, a direct linkage to XML-based databases, and all of the building blocks along the way. More importantly, the author provides multiple approaches to developing schemas, and sufficiently covers the syntactical requirements and specifications to allow you to become proficient in creating them for real applications. The book is fast-paced and you will need to be familiar with XML and its related vocabularies in order to follow this book. If you need a more introductory, tutorial-based book get "Definitive XML Schema" by Priscilla Walmsley. However, if you understand the fundamentals of relational databases, are currently developing DTDs and understand XML, this book is better suited to your experience level and is the one I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but doesn't quite come to life
Review: I do find this book useful, but only by struggling with it, and without much enjoyment. It's dry and a bit on the repetitive side, and I often have to re-read the explanations to "get" what is being said. The book seems to retain a bit too much of the bureaucratic quality of the standards & specifications world. For example, it delves frequently into the arcane controversies between factions that plague standards committees. I would have preferred something more practical, a little more energetic, and with less of an "insider" perspective. Still, half of it is useful material that a working developer can apply, and if it isn't quite up to the usual high O'Reilly standard, it isn't far below it either.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but doesn't quite come to life
Review: I do find this book useful, but only by struggling with it, and without much enjoyment. It's dry and a bit on the repetitive side, and I often have to re-read the explanations to "get" what is being said. The book seems to retain a bit too much of the bureaucratic quality of the standards & specifications world. For example, it delves frequently into the arcane controversies between factions that plague standards committees. I would have preferred something more practical, a little more energetic, and with less of an "insider" perspective. Still, half of it is useful material that a working developer can apply, and if it isn't quite up to the usual high O'Reilly standard, it isn't far below it either.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent refence work for power users
Review: I provide a copy of this book to attendees at my schema training courses (several dozen copies to date). I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from my students, some of the more technical engineers in large IT companies. It was selected by attendees with strong technical experience due to the succinct and complete coverage. In other words, it is an ideal reference book for experienced developers, not a tutorial or graphical book for your first exposure to W3C Schema. Given the complexity of the Schema spec, it is nice to have a thorough reference tool such as this on your desk when implementing the standard. I have provided other Schema books in the past, but have gotten feedback that they have more noticeable discrepancies or vaguaries.
Rating:
Summary: Beginners should definitely look elesewhere
Review: Let's face it; the XML Schema recommendations are complex, academic and often arcane. The book attempt to provide a quite in depth coverage within a limited amount of pages, the result is a solid amount of info, but definitely a dry reading, not practical oriented, almost academic. The author assume a good understanding of XML and its related technologies, it's a useful, detailed book, but beginners should definitely look elesewhere
Rating:
Summary: Finally i understood XML schema
Review: Mr Van Der Vlist explaines XML schema in a very clear way, and the book is pretty short and easy to read. He does not explain XML, so you should better understand it before buying this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy editing an embarrassment for O'Reilly
Review: This book appears to have been thrown together overnight, without the attention of a proofreader or content editor. While I can't say it's actually missing important content, it is certainly the sloppiest O'Reilly book I've ever read. The very first example (on p. 6) is a glaringly ill-formed XML document (the second line contains spurious junk text, as if from a word-processing error), and it just continues from there. The book contains numerous apparent "cut-and-paste" errors of this kind, as well as evidence that global search-and-replace operations were hastily performed on the entire text without subsequent proofreading. What's up, O'Reilly?
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