Editorial Review:Product Description:What is this book about? XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference is the only authoritative reference on XPath, a sub-language within XSLT that determines which part of an XML document the XSLT transforms. Written for professional programmers who use XML every day but find the W3C XPath specifications tough to slog through, this book explains in everyday language what every construct in the language does and how to use it. It also offers background material on the design thinking behind the language, gentle criticism of the language specification when appropriate, and a diverse range of interesting examples in various application areas.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Complete and authoritative reference, terrible format
I have never had a question about XPath that wasn't answered by this book. I appreciate having an authoritative reference written by someone who was deeply involved in the development of the standard.
However, this book (and its companion XSLT reference) is perhaps the worst-formatted reference book I have ever seen. Much of the book consists of an alphabetical reference of XPath functions. Unfortunately, the page headers and footers only contain page numbers and chapter titles. They do not contain the name of the function that is described on that page. So you can't just riff through the pages watching for your function to appear in the footer.
There is a heading for each function name, but the font used for the sub-headings are as large as (if not larger than) the major headings. There are no page breaks between functions. So you can't even visually scan the pages looking for your functions.
Finally, the table of contents consists largely of function names on the left, with page numbers on the right, separated by about five inches. But there are no dot leaders between them. So, even when you resort to using the table of contents to find the section you need, you have to use a ruler to find the page number.
Rating: 
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Utility manual
I'm reading Michel Kay many years ago. The XPath separate book from XSLT book is a very useful tool.
Rating: 
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Highly Unpractical, Only Good If You Already Know It
If you are an expert in XPath then this book might be worth having. But if you only have a general knowledge of XPath this book is basically useless. The author clearly has a solid knowledge of his topic. But the ability to communicate it in a practical way is sorely lacking.
Rating: 
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Not the author's fault (I think)
The problems people describe aren't the author's fault - I think. If someone did the ghostwriting, even with him dealing with the submitted manuscript, then shame on Mr. Kay, although his reputation would preclude this being a possibility. I think the odds would be like the lottery - so this would be an anti-lottery.
As to the quality of the WROX books, something many people forget is WROX went belly up, despite the quality of their material. The assets & IP were picked up by Wiley in 2003 (http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-105072.html). Most news doesn't mention the financial straits, just the purchase.
When Windows 3.1 came out in 1992, many asked "What's the best book(s) to buy?" The general concensus was "Petzold (MS Press) and any of the following list...". As web development has become the hot topic of the previous seven or eight years, specifically with the maturing of Microsoft's IIS/ASP, evolving into .NET. O'Reilly has long been recognized in the *NIX market and has successfully branched into many other disciplines successfully. Enough so that it's considered to be on the list of "This [O'Reilly] book and any of the following...", which may or may not be an O'Reilly book, but it's not a surprised if it is. The familiar dense (weightwise), red book with author headshots (WROX) have a similiar standing with many developers, frequently expressed to be of good standing in recommendations to others.
Unless the critical personnel were transferred along with the purchase, then the relationship between Wiley (the new owner) and WROX authors at the hands-on level and the ability for the Wiley people to acclimate and maintain the habits, philosophies, and perspective of the WROX "style", then there will be misfires, such as we've seen in the two new Kay books.
Good authors are flexible but when it comes to computer books, the various types of editors have the ability to considerably alter the destiny of the content. This can be in terms of pre-submitted direction or changes made inhouse. On top of that, unless things have changed radically in the previous years, books are written on accelerated scheduled, edited, returned to the author for verification and only [hopefully] minor changes in response to queries from the various editors. Once that manuscript is at the publisher, it's tough for external forces to change what will likely happen to the book. Aside from software feature changes (e.g. in beta), the direction has been established and things move forward.
One would hope as X* continues to mature there will be another opportunity for the second edition of this book to overcome a first edition which should have been a complement to Kay's XSLT Programmer's Reference, a must-have item on the shelf of anyone who claims to work with XSLT. Important enough, as I've said elsewhere, it's an interview question: what XSLT books do you have on your shelf? If Kay is missing...then either the candidate is *so* good they don't need it (extremely rare) or their unfamiliar enough with what's going on in the real world (and real world resources) they are likely not to be at a level they should be and may need to be nudged into additional professional growth with the book.
Rating? ** As Clint Eastwood says in The Gauntlet, "I'll give her a two. But that's only because I've never seen a one." In this case, we've seen a 4 1/2 or 5 star XSLT book unable to transfer its performance to an equally important sibling. The potential is there, the content is [mostly] there, the author is there, so it's better than nothing, or a lesser work from someone less qualified than Mr. Kay. Because we've seen an extremely high quality product, we have to look at this with an critical & hesitant eye.
For those who feel they've been punk'd, particularly if they've had the book strongly recommended to them, more's the pity. They're at a fork in the road, requiring a coin toss: keep the book for what's there or return it to the publisher with a few specific statements regarding your displeasure and what you expect. Otherwise, you're probably going to be presented with a choice of another WROX book (or a book from another publishing house within the Wily lineup). If you want your money back, you're going to have to be firm about that. Money going back out is money out of their pocket(s). Keeping a customer happy, as opposed to pacifying soon to be ex-customer, regardless of what else is said or done is far less expensive and they feel it's a generous sign of good will.
Rating: 
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The basics, clear and there
After stumbling around trying to a handle on XSLT, I finally realized that a big chunk was not being explained within the XSLT books. Most of the XSLT books bring XPath statements out of hat like a magician's rabbit -- there is no way one can figure out what to do in any given situation. Thanks to this book, what was mystery meat is now clear as a bell. In the first nine pages, a dozen questions were answered. I don't see how you can do serious XPath and XSLT without this book in hand.