I don't see all the "hype" because I'm trying to get my head into what it
really is, so I can't judge that.
Here's some important facts (or at least important enough for them to occur
to me in the few minutes I was typing this post):
- There is no more HTML. The only standard for
web browsing is now XHTML,
which is an XML application, not an SGML application (as HTML was).
- XML requires a parser to abort if it's malformed. No more browsers
that all error-correct malformed HTML in different ways.
- XML is simpler to parse because there are no optional end tags.
- XML is not a universal "data exchange" panacea. You still have to agree
on the semantics of the tags. But at least the syntax is clearly indisputable.
- XML is rich enough that almost anything that wants to be a "text" file
with structure can be represented as XML
- XML will never be an input format for naive data entry. The rules for
constructing XML data are learnable, but not by the average data entry clerk. {grin}
Hopefully, that's a good start. I think XML is a good thing, but only for what
it is designed for.
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
