Comments about oreilly XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition:

While this book may not be the easiest for beginners, as it goes into quite a bit of detail, I found this book most excellent, having read a few other beginning books on XML already.

I particularly like its section on XSL for making clear (unlike other books I've read, even from O'Reilly) what XSL's default rules are and how one overrides them, with step-by-step examples (if containing more info than your beginner will want).

It is both a great comprehensive review/tutorial and a superb reference. (There were some errata, especially in the Document Grammar, but I doubt that too many of us folks are really reading that part carefully anyways, especially with it being on the net too.)

No, I give my hearty praise to this book. In my opinion, the author must have put a whole lot of effort into this to have as few errors as it does have compared to other reference books. And like I said, it does go into some detail, but to really understand how aspects of XML and its technologies work, a person really does want to know the details or otherwise one cannot make one's own documents in an informed manner (and the book is not full of too much tech-speak, really, but only if you've already had some exposure to XML, I'd say).

Comments about oreilly XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition:

You can find a download link for the example code here:

http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/examples/

where the author (Elliotte Rusty Harold) has published his own web site

Comments about oreilly XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition:

Overall Comments:

The book is a very good XML reference, covering a great many specific XML topics as well as generic XML concepts. I would recommend this book as a valuable reference to anyone using XML.

Likes:

I appreciated the writing style, where verbose explanations are given for the main points the author has in each chapter. Also I found the use of charts and example code very helpful in explaining the concepts. There were many reference charts and information in the book (nearly half the content of the book), which is critical to have in a reference manual.

Dislikes:

There maybe could have been a bit more detail in the sections on generic XML ("XML Fundamentals", and "Document Format"), but I'm a bit biased because that's what I'd be using it for --- deep within one-of-a-kind C code. Most people will be interested in the other "pre-canned" XML formats that are popular with web use, so I can understand why the generic XML sections were short and sweet.

Recommendation:

Highly recommended as a reference for those using XML in programming.

Comments about oreilly XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition:

The content of the book itself is great. The biggest problem is the publisher not providing a download link for the example code as is promised in the book.

I went through a lengthy book registration process, and email validation, and I still was not given a link to download the example code. The Orielly site focuses on trying to sell a subscription to the Safari Ebook to me when I have already purchased the hard copy. Searching through the Safari site there is no indication that I would even get the sample code if I did sign up for the subscription, which I don't plan to do right now.

The code in the book is great, and I will get this download if I have to call and email every Orielly contact I can find on a daily basis. It shouldn't be this difficult. I get the supporting files for most of my technical books easily enough. In one case I had to email an author, who responded quickly. This Oreilly book does not provide an author contact, so that won't work in this case.