I'm somewhat in agreement with Tilly on this one. XML creates a host of issues that I really don't need to or care to deal with. Admittedly, this comes from someone who writes perl mostly for systems administration and monitoring, but I feel that XML has a host of problems, problems that people far more eloquent and knowledgeable than I have already enumerated.

However, I also think that perl is great for XML. Perl is fantastic for text manipulation. What is XML apart from text with a bunch of angle brackets thrown in for fun?

In direct response to your final question, I think that people don't say "Perl/XML for a few reasons. It is my firm belief that Perl programmers tend not to get swept up by the latest and greatest craze quite as easily. Publishers don't scramble to produce books titled "Perl with BUZZWORD" because most of us knew about it when it was still an RFC and either 1) picked it up then or 2) decided that we probably didn't need to know it.

I know that last statement is a massive generalization, but I think it holds true (mostly). Other programming languages tend to pick up on buzzwords faster. Not to criticize, but Java has always seemed, to me, to be the pinnacle of this. The Java book market and documentation seems to be filled with buzzwords. At my local Borders, there are 2 7-foot tall shelves of Java books. When I look at the titles, I can trace the buzzwords from about 3 years ago to the present-day. When I look at the Perl books, I can at least find a book on what I would like to know.

Take it for what it's worth.