Re: Books on XSLT/XPATH

I have XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 by Michael Kay and also 

Beginning XSLT 2.0
from Novice to Professional by Jenni Tennison.

Since I was a newbie to XSLT I
started with the Beginning XSLT 2.0 book, 
I have come to understand many new
features of XSLT 2.0 with this book I've read up until Paths and Sequences
but haven't tried the exercises in the book yet.

I feel that when learning
any programming language there are multiple stages of learning

1) Learn all
the concepts first and get a high level understand of the overall language.
Especially if one is comeing from a procedural language or OO background
it helps to look at things from a new perspective or at least anticipate that
there's a new perspective to any language.
2) Re-read and practice the
exercises - the second pass gets the foundation strong.
3) Then look at design
patterns that provide common solutions to known/ frequent problems.

After
gaining some basic understanding of XSLT I looked through the XSLT 2.0 and
XPath 2.0 books by Michael Kay, and I feel that the two books are written very
well and cover 
each topic comprehensively with tabular references, graphs,
code snippets. I plan to read them soon once I finish the Beginning XSLT book,
or I may refer them on an as needed basis to look-up detailed information
regarding a topic. 

The index of the book shows the page numbers for each
topic clearly and I find that it is easy to navigate the book, upon
understanding the basic concepts of XSLT and XPath.

-Regards
Rashmi


-----
Original Message ----
From: Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 12:08:25 PM
Subject: RE:  Books on XSLT/XPATH


> so the 
> reflection is obviously
one against the format chosen by Wrox 
> and continued when Wiley took things
over.  Of course, I 
> can't imagine that this is something they do in
>
ignorance: My guess is that their research and/or 
> user-feedback from over
the years suggests this to be a 
> format that works for the core
readers/customers that are 
> attracted to Wrox titles.

Actually, the
original Wrox (when they were an independent UK-based
publisher) got this
right; when Wiley took over the brand they messed it up,
largely due to a lack
of coordination between their "editorial" and
"production" departments - a
distinction which didn't exist in the much
smaller Wrox company. When the
technical editor and I realized the page
proofs didn't have the alphabetical
section headings we tried to get it
fixed but were told it was too late to
change, for which I can only
apologize to readers!

I'm in the very early
stages of discussion with Wiley about doing a revised
edition of the books to
fix the few areas where the final specs have
diverged. Don't hold your breath.
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
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