XML Dogmas Examined

This section takes a quick look at some dogmas that have grown up around XML to see if they are realistic.

"XML is simple." This statement or variants of it have been seen time after time. What has probably happened is that the statement that "XML is a simple text format" has been generalized, falsely as it happens, to the "XML is simple" format. Think about the statement "Computing data uses a simple numerical format—zeroes and ones." Does it then follow that computing is "simple?" Surely not. Similarly, the fact that aspects of the text format that XML uses are "simple" does not mean that XML is simple. XML was not "simple" when XML 1.0 appeared, and it is far more complex now.

"XML allows you to work quicker and easier." ...

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