This book tries to do too much and falls down on many accounts. The two chapters on XSLT left me wondering what in the world was going on. Jacobs provides examples of how to use XSLT, but fails to explain how the code really works.

The examples are very contrived. For instance, Jacobs shows how to use PHP to retrieve a result set from a MySQL database. Then, we see convoluted steps to convert the data into XML. Then we have to write XSLT to manipulate the XML. It would be much more efficient and practical to use PHP's object-oriented MySQL capabilities to spit the results into XHTML, or use PHP's own DOM capabilities to manipulate the XML.

This book simply fails because it tries to cover too much information in its short length, and also due to the many weak, impractical examples throughout. To sum it up, it's all examples and no substance.

Being a developer who uses XML extensively but for very specific applications I was interested in reading this book to help expand my understanding of XML-specific issues as they relate to Ajax and the browser environment.

I feel that Sas has accomplished her mission in giving a very thorough overview of the topic of XML. This book was very well written, clear and concise. Of particular interest to me were the examples of developing with XSLT, using the CSS functionality and developing in tandem with server side scripting. I thought the examples were relevant and the sections that were shorter led me to other resources where I might continue my explorations in depth. I prefer that the author accomplish the stated task and leave deeper explorations for other books - I felt that what was covered was perfect for the length of the book and gave me the information I was looking for based on the title. Interestingly, it's one of those books that I really did read from cover to cover. A rare event for me with computer books.

This is an excellent book for those who are looking to expand their use of XML in development projects for the browser.

Sas Jacobs writes in the Introduction that she wanted this book to be a one-stop shop to learn how to build XML web applications. I think she reached her goal.

Besides being a mouthful, Beginning XML with DOM and Ajax is crammed with just about every XML topic you can think of from both the client and server side. The topics on the client side cover all the usual suspects such as XSLT and DOM. There're also a few odd client side topics covered as well -- such as mixing CSS and XML and using XML with Flash. The server side section of the book is noticeably shorter than the client side. It's really just one chapter doing a quick overview of ASP and PHP related XML tools. At the very end, there are two case studies -- one for ASP and one for PHP -- in which a full XML-based web application is built. These two studies are really great and definitely build on the server side chapter.

All of these topics are covered in a book just over 400 pages long. Now this might be the only time you hear me say this, but I think this book is a little short for all the topics it covers. Don't get me wrong, the coverage is excellent, the examples are numerous, and the case studies are detailed; however, reading this book was a bit like eating incredibly rich chocolate -- even small portions were more than enough to handle.

The book is an excellent introduction into XML, what in today's world of distributed, multi-platform applications development, is an unavoidable and critical technology. An essential amount of foundation is provided on the basics of XML and XHTML (DTDs schema, structuring rules, web vocabularies, etc.), it also delves into CSS, DOM scripting, remoting via XMLHTTP for AJAX interfaces, server-side XML in ASP.NET 2.0 and PHP, and using XML in Flash applications. Each chapter has a good amount of web-based resources to check out. Even experienced developers will find something useful in this book.

Author Sas Jacobs features a great discussion about using some of the lesser-known niche features of CSS with XML, and provides healthy, practical examples you can replicate or download and instantly implement in your own web projects.

My favorite chapter, and the one I've broke the spine on for my own copy, is Chapter 7 - "Advanced Client-Side XSLT Techniques". There you'll find the necessary information for building sophisticated (if not universally supported by all browsers) web UIs through integrated transformations. This includes demonstrating how to use extension functions/objects, generating JavaScript through XSLT, and dynamic client-side sorting. Most of these are MSIE-dependent, but the chapter also takes into consideration proper testing for graceful degradation in Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, etc. For similar reasons, I likewise got a lot out of the "DOM Scripting" discussion.

In criticism, I would have liked the chapter on XSLT - in my opinion the section most people reading this book will need the most - to be longer. It's rather rudimentary even and doesn't cover some of the more time-saving features of XSLT. Also, I found the "Web Vocabularies" to be extraneous; interesting but not warranting an entire chapter in today's WWW. The book would also benefit from an appendix of the resources mentioned for various tools, URLs and technologies available to speed XML-related development.

But beyond these minor concerns, which I'm sure will be modified in forthcoming revised versions, the book remains a must-have resource for introductory programming, and a useful tool for more intermediate developers.