Rating:  - good and bad
I found Learning XSLT confusing from a beginner's point of view. It's poorly indexed, and Fitzgerald often uses XSLT vocabulary in examples long before he explains what they are. For example the "select" attribute first appears on page 105 in an example describing the lang() function, without any explanation of what it is or how it should be used. It's not listed at all in the index except in relation to the "for-each" and "sort" elements. He has a nice list of string functions but not much explanation of what kinds of contexts they can be used in, and few examples. He doesn't really explain how "match" and "select" are used together, or how processing works hierarchically by jumping between xsl snippets. Like a lot of O'Reilly books it presumes a pretty sophisticated programming vocabulary (like what does "normalize" mean anyway?).
Some sections are quite useful however, and the fact that there are lots of examples is very helpful.
Rating: - Dissapointing presentation. Needs a rewrite
The information is presented very dryly. The tone of the book is very taxing on the readers attention span.
I find that one of the key tenets of these O'Reilly books is that they are usually very readable, and can be read front to back almost like a novel. I didn't find I was able to do this with Learning XSLT.
Maybe it's the subject matter or maybe its the authors inability to hook the reader. Either way, it didn't work for me.
Rating:  - A Lifesaver
Late one evening last week I was stuck needing to write some XSL code before an important deadline the next day. Having never written any XSL before, I turned to "Learning XSLT." After spending about two hours studying the excellent examples in the book, I was able to complete the stylesheet I needed which contains about 100 lines of code and 10 templates. I highly recommend the book to anyone needing to get up-to-speed quickly on XSLT.
Rating:  - Poorly Organized, and a Useless Index
Granted that XSLT is a confusing topic, and granted that this is supposed to be an introduction rather than a reference, but this disappointing book does not make the subject any more approachable. The author skips all over the place, including coverage of peripherally related topics that would have been better in an appendix (e.g., code points?).
The book is further flawed by an absolutely useless index. Many important terms do not appear in the index at all, and others reference a passing mention in the text rather than a useful discussion.
Rating: - Great book
I had a copy of the Wrox XSLT Book and ended up more confused then before I started. The O'Reilly Book is MUCH easier to understand. The answer I needed was in the Keys chapter (imagine that, a whole chapter on Keys). I spent hours with the Wrox book, only to find what I needed in 5 minutes with O'Reilly.
Thank you!
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