I found the book to be written and organized quite well, but the depth of the content and sample programs were disappointing. It is an excellent source of elementary information on XML, DTD, JAXP SAX and DOM; strangely missing is any mention of XML Schema. Also, the chapter on the Apache "Ant" project seems completely misplaced from another text. I buy a book looking for the author's interpretation of the "spec" and their wisdom. I expect to leverage the author's experience and learn best practices; otherwise I would just read the "spec" and save my money.
I'm giving this book a higher recommendation than it may deserve, but 3.5 stars isn't a reviewer's option. If you're looking for an in depth book based on experience rather than summarization then this is not the book for you. Overall I can summarize the book as a handy reference that conveniently gathers the basic information on these subjects that is otherwise freely available on the W3C and Javasoft web sites.
