Rating: 
Summary: Tedious, with unnecessarily super-sized examples
Review: A good technical book should not be a doorstop. Instead, the book needs to explain the topics concisely, use brief and coherent examples that illustrate the text, and where alternative implementations are available, explain the alternatives briefly but save the detailed exposition for the recommended path. Instead, this book just uses lots of paper to provide far too detailed examples with little bits of explanatory material squeezed in...that go into way too much detail themselves. Also: It's BORRRRING. Yuck.
Rating: 
Summary: the best you can get for xml
Review: another bible, just like others, the best books you can find to learn a subject completely... all topics are fully described with so many examples and a cd with xml files that can be useful
Rating: 
Summary: Good coverage of XML, but why bother?
Review: ERH (the author) knows his XML terminology and concepts backwards and forwards - so if you want to learn what XML is all about you can do no wrong with this book. Stop reading here and buy a copy already. If you are not sure if you want to learn XML keep reading this review.As a side note this book is HUGE. After the first three chapters of this Bible you get into what is basically theory, since that is what XML is - theory (for most people anyway). Now I'm a web developer, so I'm biased in that regard. If you are a web developer thinking of moving into the XML sphere - I have to ask why? Shouldn't you rather be learning some nice PHP or MySQL - stuff that will, you know, make your web site cool and useful instead of more (unnecessary) work for yourself? Well I shouldn't say that (I did though didn't i?), you might be able to make an extremely complicated page out of XML if you are really, really bored. Or, you could just zap off some regular HTML that will actually work in most browsers for now and the forseable (?) future. The best part of the book of course is that ERH (the author again) uses Baseball as his XML specification of choice - this makes it both interesting (as far as that is possible with this technology) and fun. If you want to learn XML, pick up a copy of this hefty tome. If you aren't sure if you want to learn XML do not pick up a copy of this hefty tome as you will never read it, and even if you do you'll be unlikely to use any of it. I like the cover - a standing robot. That's how you'll feel after 'reading' this incredibly large book. Actually you'll be sitting.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding desk reference
Review: First, I have to admit that no book can cover the whole of XML technology. It's spread so far (into XSL, Xlink, XPointer and more), it has so many companion technologies (FO, CSS, X/HTML, SAX, DOM, etc), and the standards change so fast that it's hopeless to look for The One book.
That said, this book is an effective guide and introduction for experienced programmers - beginners may find it a bit much, and may not like the lack of cut&paste code. This gives the clearest coverage I know of DTDs. It also covers XLinks, XPointers, XInclude, and the basics of schemas well enough to put those tools to use. You can try, at least: some of the standards (like XPointers) are so new and unstable that very few browsers support them.
The discussion of CSS is a good start, but will work best in conjuction with a book solely about CSS. Most CSS books, however, talk only about HTML, so this helps bridge the gap to CSS/XML. There's a short section on XSL, probably too short for any real application writers - Kay's XSLT book will help a lot. There's also a short, informative section on XSL/FO. Harold may intend this more as a look into the future (FO isn't in browsers yet) and as a comparison to CSS than as a real programmer's guide. He finishes with a brief description of XHTML and SVG.
Although the core of XML syntax has been stable for some years now, the larger sense of XML is a fast-changing and fast-growing family of interlocked standards. It's way too soon for the last word on the topic, and experts haven't settled on usage conventions. Some of us can't wait, though. We need XML help now, and this book does a good job delivering that help.
//wiredweird
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: Having worked very little with XML related technologies for more than 2 years now, I was skeptical when a colleague recommended this book as a good strater to learning more advanced XML related technologies. 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. I recommend this book to every programmer who wants to pick up XML quickly and does not have lots of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay if you can get past the Microsoft bashing
Review: I agree that there are lots of unnecessary examples and wayyyyyy too much paper used to make this a great book. I also got very tired, very fast, of all the pointless Microsoft bashing. You could probably save a forest if you took out all the unnecessary pokes and prods at the big M. Stick with O'Reilly texts if you want to learn quickly.
Rating:
Summary: A Bible for Writers/Designers
Review: I am finally getting around to actually checking out XML, and spent a few days checking out the field for that perfect, up-to-date introduction. I found ... It seems to be pretty much a toss-up between this book and the Wrox Beginning XML, and that seems to reflect the overall position of XML itself. At first, it attracted the Writers (aka web designers, content providers) as a web content description/management system. Then the Coders (enterprise app developers, MS & Co.) got into the act, seeing it as a universal middleware protocol to replace all the old proprietary EDI protocols. Two very different visions for the same technology. This book seems whole-heartedly and unapologetically devoted to the former, going into depth about XML's linguistic prowess in organizing, representing, and transforming CONTENT, but has _nothing_ to say about using it as a vehicle for data exchange (B2B, Web Services, SOAP). The Wrox book on the other hand, seems to take the completely opposite approach, wallowing in SOAP and ASP code, writing prototype web services and hooking up to database. A book for the enterprise developer thru and thru. This left-brain/right-brain split means that you need BOTH books to get the complete picture of XML today. I do think this book is better written and more friendly, though. And the thought of getting the Complete Shakespearean Plays in XML as a freebie is downright exciting :-) I am a C++ guy, but this much seems obvious. I welcome comments from more experienced XML jockeys (and better book recommendations, if any!)
Rating:
Summary: This book is blah-blah-blah!
Review: I am new to XML but not new to programming and web programming especially. So far I made it grudgingly to Chapter 8. I am very disappointed. The book gives huge examples to show something really small. Typical example: sample code starting at p.72 down to p.78 - a seven page example!!! What the heck?! Why does anybodoy need such a huge example? I will fall asleep before I read through the code not mentioning typing it in. Useless! All the programming books I have read so far rarely go above 2 pages of sample coding. I think it's too much blah-blah-blah! Keep it short, guys, I don't have time to read all that stuff!!! I don't know if I am gonna make it till the end but if I do I will probably reward myself for that.
Rating:
Summary: Some topics are a little out of date.
Review: I bought this book about 9 months ago, and while at first it was a decent introduction to XML, I rarely find myself referring to it. I would recommend the WROX Professional XML book if you are looking for a good introduction to XML, and for a reference book.
Rating:
Summary: XML Bible
Review: I found this to be well written, concise and extremely informative. I have some experience writing web pages in HTML but am not an expert webmaster my any means. I found that he presented the ideas in good detail, and usually referenced well known web resources (W3.org, etc.) as places to get further detail on specific concepts. Mr. Harold didn't waste words or space on irrelevant fluff as so many technical writers are wont to do. If I have one issue with this book, it would be that Mr Harold uses too many baseball references in his examples - most of that data was completely lost on me, a baseball (un)fan. All in all, I found this book to be well worth the investment. It will have a place on my reference bookshelf for a long time to come.
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