References for the study group

Course References

Basic reference textbook

We are planning to use Jenni Tennison's "Beginning XSLT 2.0, From Novice to Professional" as a reference for the study group.

1.0 / 2.0 Note: For those of you that know 1.0 and want to learn 2.0 features, the book does NOT distinguish them in the text, but read the Introduction - 'How this book is structured'. Those brief chapter introductions specifically note what will be new for 1.0 folks to learn. Also, the reference at the back of the book - Appendix B: XSLT Quick Reference - says "From 1.0" or "From 2.0" at the bottom of each entry.

You will be able to find out everything you need without the book using resources listed below. But the book provides a guide for the order in which we will cover material and a handy narrative from a well-respected practitioner.

Other recommended references

As we create learning tasks and challenges, look through some of these references and point others to things that are relevant and useful.

Other books

Mike Kay's book, XSLT-2-0-Programmers-Reference-Programmer covers much the same ground, but it aimed at the professional programmer.
For even deeper details, XSLT-XPath-Edge-Professional-Mindware

Free Web Resources

W3School : www.w3schools.com/xsl/ -- This has an online XSLT editor that shows results! Could be a handy place to find exercises or ideas for exercises. Might be a handy tool to add to the tools page.
David Pawson's XSLT FAQ 1.0 Version : This FAQ has a list of links about different XSL operations and topics. And here is one that is specifically 2.0 2.0 Version
ZVON: XSLTutorial/Books/Book1 That tutorial is basically 71 little samples/examples showing uses of XSLT 1.0's more important features one at a time. ZVON has handy links covering all the (1.0) elements, functions, axes, and operators: XSLTreference/Output/
Norm Walsh's XPath 2.0 & XSLT 2.0 slides -slides.pdf
XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference - sample chapter
Printable quick reference (2 pages) - quickref/xslt2.pdf

Some references that need further investigation

These need some investigation so that we know whether they are 1.0 or 2.0

Stackoverlfow recommendations

Task Discussion

Kathi Fletcher June 7, 2012, 10:39 p.m.

OK -- I incorporated Rob's additional references and also fixed the claim that EVERYTHING IS FREE, MUST GO, ON SALE etc. Hopefully more accurate now.
Buzzy June 7, 2012, 5:27 p.m.

A small point. Under

Other recommended references (all freely available)

the first two aren't. :-)
Buzzy June 7, 2012, 5:25 p.m.

Here are a few I found:

Dave Pawson's reference and quick ref. -

http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/rev2/rev2.html

Neil Walsh's XPath 2.0 & XSLT 2.0 slides -

http://nwalsh.com/docs/tutorials/extreme04/slides.pdf

Sample chapter from XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference -

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/90/07645690/0764569090.pdf

Another quick ref. -

http://www.mulberrytech.com/quickref/xslt2.pdf
Kathi Fletcher May 15, 2012, 9:34 p.m.

I added Max's reference to the reference list and also put in a note about how to tell what features are from 1.0 and which from 2.0 if you get the Jeni Tennison book.
Max S May 14, 2012, 9:32 a.m.

IIRC, I barely used books while learning XSLT. The first tutorial/guide I used is somewhere still out there, but hidden behind obnoxious ads and deep in archive.org, so I'll send the link to the other primary tutorial I used to learn XSLT:

http://zvon.org/xxl/XSLTutorial/Books/Book1/index.html

That tutorial is basically 71little samples/examples showing uses of XSLT 1.0's more important features one at a time. To this day, ZVON is where I continue to go to use their XSLT Reference, which has handy links covering all the (1.0) elements, functions, axes, and operators:

http://zvon.org/xxl/XSLTreference/Output/

We did have Michael Kay's 1.0 book in the Connexions office, and I recall that I mostly used it for its handy visual representations of the axes used in XPATH (e.g. to remember the differences between preceding:: and preceding-sibling::).