Rating:  - Not worth the money
I bought this book because of its title and it's the only book out there like it.
I have found this book to be very dissapointing.
1. You need to download the code from Wrox to understand the examples in the book.
2. The samples in the book are complex and isn't easy to follow.
3. There are not enough examples.
It might be good for you, but I would not recommend it.
Rating:  - I Don't Like It
I think there are far too many details included that don't interest the average developer.
Rating:  - Hmm...
Book is more-or-less ok, but organizationally tends to be a bit disjointed. Also, basic elements of XML are not defined as clearly as they might be.
For example, Chapter 3 is titled "XML With .Net in Detail--How Does XML Fit in with .NET". However, the major portion of this chapter is devoted to XPath in-and-of-itself, with only minor reference to .Net. Moreover, I found myself getting lost a bit in the XPath presentation. No doubt this was due to some extent to the complexity of XPath itself, but it seemed like the authors could have been clearer in their presentation.
After reading the first three chapters at my local Borders, I switched over to the Microsoft Press "XML Step-By-Step". I find the "Step-by-Step" presentation to be much clearer on the basics, although not as comprehensive (no XPath!).
In general, I find the Microsoft Press books to be distinctly better these days then the Wrox books. But I would say that the Wrox VB.Net "Handbook" series does have some real merit, reminding me of the original Wrox books that I used to savor back in the "old" days.
Rating:  - A Good Introduction to These Great Technologies
I am very impressed with this book. It starts off by introducing XML in the first couple of chapters then spends three chapters of teaching the reader how to integrate .NET and XML. This gives a great grounding, allowing the reader to start to developing integrated solutions (such as the book's phone book app case study) after one hundred pages and to produce a fairly comprehensive site in just a couple of hundred pages.
Although they are briefly mentioned in the initial chapters additional elements such as the DOM, XPath, XSLT, Schemas, ADO.NET and web services are given their own chapters later on. The book finishes by consolidating what the reader has learnt with a comprehensive case study. This segregation was very clear and appealed to me by allowing me to pick and choose from the technologies I was interested in (for instance as I often develop for Flash with XML I could skip over the two XSLT chapters because I use Flash to apply formatting).
I am thoroughly impressed with this book because of its clear delivery. I am a real fan of .NET anyway and the authors have managed to put across in a very clear way just how simple it can be to develop with these two technologies. And just to cap it all, as if I am not taken enough with this book it even regularly refers to Edinburgh, my home town, in its examples!
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is taking their first steps in using XML with VB.NET and wants to take their skills to the intermediate level.
Mike Poole
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