XML Turns 5

GiMP writes "According to the World Wide Web Consortium, XML turns 5 years old today. XML is used by many programs as a generic container for data. Applications range from websites, to word processor documents, to video games. It seems like only yesterday it was only a working-draft."

Comments

XML may collapse under its own complexity

[Mike.Plusch]

Although XML may be full of potential, I and many others have found that XML 1.0 has carried significant baggage from the SGML document-centric world, and XML is being shoe-horned into service for data representation. The fact that there is even such a problem as "elements-vs-attributes" when trying to represent a simple value indicates that all is not well. All the standards built on top of XML 1.0 inherit its limitations. The first generation of the Web was originally designed by one person and used HTML, HTTP, and URI. It was quite simple and people adopted them because things were understandable. 10+ years later and we need 12+ languages to write a simple application. The collection of half-baked standards are a house of cards waiting for a small breeze to knock it down.