I bought this book based on the reviews of the first edition. I generally like the book for its fast paced introduction to XML. However, I find some of the examples confusing and I do not like the way the author always has you jumping around to different pages for information. Furthermore, there are some pointers to other pages that are wrong. Also, alot of information is put in "sidebars". Some of these sidebars are multiple pages so I do not understand their purpose. I find myself referring to Holzner's "Inside XML" a good amount of the time for clarification. If you want a quick and dirty intro to XML, this book is for you. If you need to learn XML, you will want Holzner's book in addition to this. Holzner gives you best practices as you read whereas this book does not. For example, this book uses the MIXED format for declaring elements within DTD's. However, Holzner does not recommend this and tells you why.