What's So Great About XML?

XML is so popular for many reasons. I'll examine some of them here as part of our overview of where XML is today. My own personal favorite is that XML allows easy data handling and exchange, and I'm going to start with that.

Easy Data Exchange

I've been involved with computing for a long time, and one of the things I've watched with misgiving is the growth of proprietary data formats. In earlier days, programs could exchange data easily because data was stored as text. Today, however, you need conversion programs or modules to let applications transfer data between themselves. In fact, proprietary data formats have become so complex that frequently one version of a complex application can't even read data from an earlier ...

Get Real World XML now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.