Re: Books on XSLT/XPATH

I have commented more than once on the great value of Dr. Kay's XSLT
2.0 and XPath 2.0 books.

Recently I was trying to understand how to implement a lexical scanner
for XPath 2.0. While the description in the XPath 2.0 Recommendation
was very complicated and overly confusing, I found Dr. Kay's
definition of the lexical aspects of the language very understandable
and instructional.

Hopefully they will incorporate Dr. Kay's lexical and grammar
definition (at least as a matter of style) in a 2.1 or Errata version
of the recommendation.

--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
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To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
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You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play

M. David Peterson wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:54:29 -0700, Simon Shutter <simon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> With XSLT2 recently becoming a final recommendation, will there be a
>> spate
>> of new books or can I reliably purchase texts published in 2004/2005?
>
> Good question.  Here's my take: I use Dr. Kay's XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0
> titles on a near daily basis, and while there are certainly differences
> in the spec of 2004/5 and today, generally speaking they're small, edge
> case changes, of which I can only assume the necessary erata will be
> available for @
> http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-0764569090,descCd-view_errata.html
> before too much time passes.
>
> That said, given that,
>
> 1) Dr. Kay is one of the most active (if not *the* most active
> contributor to this list), and in cases particular to his books as well
> as Saxon, the response time for support is near instant.
> 2) The activity on this list is *HIGH*.  When problems are presented,
> solutions are near guarenteed to soon follow.
>
> With all of the above in mind: Go buy both Dr. Kay's XPath 2.0 and XSLT
> 2.0 titles, and find comfort in knowing that on the rare occassion you
> find an error, the fix will arrive shortly after a post to this list.

seconded. i've got both xpath2 and xsl2, and they are great, with two
minor gripes: they could easily be a little shorter without losing much
of the depth (but then again, all explanations are foolproof), and wrox
messed up the the page headers big time. they are totally useless, since
you don't see at a glance which element or function is being discussed,
which is a showstopper for a reference handbook. the books could also
use alphabetic markers on the edge. the content is excellent, though.