Re: [docbook-apps] learning more

[Richard Hamilton <hamilton@xmlpress.net>]

Tim,

I use Michael Kay's XSLT 2.0 book. It has some flaws (like being hard to navigate; both because the headers don't contain enough information and because some basic concepts are spread around), but it has some extensive examples and a lot of detail. It also does a pretty good job of identifying 2.0 vs. 1.0 features. It also covers XPath pretty well. 

Regardless of which book or other resources you use, I would suggest "assigning" yourself some basic tasks to try and learn by doing. For example, I wrote a stylesheet for the IEEE publication format just to learn how to deal with a two-column format. Doing that format also forced me to figure out how to do a run-in section heading and some other things I wouldn't have otherwise thought of. There are all sorts of customizations you can try out that will get you into the stylesheets and teach you XSLT.

Good luck.

Dick Hamilton
-------
XML Press
XML for Technical Communicators
http://xmlpress.net
hamilton@xmlpress.net



On Apr 30, 2012, at 12:34 PM, Tim Arnold wrote:

> hi,
> I'm using DocBook 5 and creating HTML using the stylesheets with a few
> customizations of my own.
> I understand xslt a bit, but I'm just a beginner. If my goal is to
> comfortably understand the docbook stylesheets (particularly the
> upcoming xslt2.0 version), what can I do to learn more?
> 
> I am already reading the xslt 1 code and consulting the DocBook XSL
> book and 'the XSL companion' (bradley,2000).
> So I am at the point where, if it were a spoken language I could ask
> simple questions but not have a great conversation.
> 
> So, books, online resources, courses?
> thanks for any suggestions.
> 
> --Tim Arnold
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis-open.org
>