Rating:  - A book of frustrations
If you are beginning XML this is not the book for you. The book contains a high number of errors in the examples. Keep away from this books second edition.
Rating:  - Not for beginners.
For me (with 20 years of professional programming experience) a software book that calls itself 'Beginning XYZ' means that I should be able to read it from cover to cover and when I'm done, I should have enough of an understanding of XYZ to be able to actually use it in a productive manner. 'Beginning XML' completely fails by this definition.
I am quite a fan of Wrox Press books and some of the 'Beginning' books will take you to the intermediate level by the time you are done. But Beginning XML is a mish-mash of confused ideas and faulty logic. One Amazon reviewer was completely on the mark in saying that it's sometimes hard to follow the reasoning in this book because a single sentence will start off one way and then contradict itself by the end of the sentence. The main frustration of this book is how often I could not understand the argument in a single paragraph or even a single sentence.
This book also fails very badly on separating important stuff from stuff that doesn't matter. Because it's not well organized, I had to do the work of figuring out what is going on in each topic instead of having the book tell me. (If I wanted to learn XML from other people's code, I could have just gotten code and saved money by not buying the book.)
Also, as an XML beginner, I don't need constant references to Web sites that give the W3 specifications on various XML technologies. There is much other detail of use only to advanced XML users.
I gave the book two stars instead of one because it may be of some use to programmers with much more experience in XML, and because the authors did make some effort. (Some books are so full of text and coding errors, I feel that I've been taken advantage of. These are the 1 star books.)
In short, not for beginners. If you want a great beginner's book, do yourself a favor and get 'XML Step By Step' by Michael J. Young (now in a second edition).
Rating:  - Excellent Code Examples, Great Updated Version
This new edition really improves on the previous one. Although I liked the previous edition, this one is even better, and contains corrections, adds chapters on new technologies not covered in the previous one, and continues to deliver on Wrox quality. For those who don't have the previous edition (first), this one covers everything you need to know about XML as of today.
Rating:  - Friendliy XML book that's also quite meaty
I've seen 4 or 5 XML books and own two including this one. The other one I have is XML: A Primer 2nd Ed by Simon St. Laurent...I've seen other books as thick as or thicker than 'Beginning XML' and from a quick glance, I've found to contain little more than fluff.
'Beginning XML' does a good job of covering all the important topics related to XML like Namespaces, DTDs, Schemas, XPath, DOM, SAX, XSLT, CSS etc... much so that the title is not really accurate in this sense. The other introductory XML books out there do not even touch on these topics to any practical degree.
I would also not recommend a Microsoft Press XML book as, typical with anything from Microsoft, I suspect it will teach you XML in a style that forces you to be dependent on Microsoft tools. However, as MS is one of the most important purveyors of quality XML tools it would also be a mistake to ignore their offerings. 'Beginning XML' does a very good job of acquainting you with both the MS tools as well as some of the more important third party ones.
The author's style is very friendly and easy to read and succeeds in making very complex and often boring topics like XSLT almost tolerable and sometimes even entertaining. Even more importantly, he touches on all the important issues in depth so that after finishing this book you can consider yourself at least an intermediate level expert in the myriad XML-related technologies out there.
The only reason I'm not giving five stars is because there just might be something better out there. But then, I wouldn't hang around waiting for one, 'coz Beginning XML, unlike the other books out there, is going to educate you on the topic in a sufficiently comprehensive and useful way. XML and its related technologies is a huge and difficult field, and any book that looks like it makes for light reading will, in my opinion, fail to teach the subject properly.
Rating: - The best XML book on the market
Having purchased and read 10 books on XML in the past year this book was the best of the breed. I have also recently purchased the freshly upgraded Professional XML also by WROX and again WROX rocks!
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