What is XML for?

[Tyler Baker]

"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:

> At 10:57 AM 1/29/99 -0800, Dave Winer wrote:
> >>>it's simple enough for neophytes to walk up to and explore
> >
> >You gotta be kidding!
>
> I'm not kidding, not at all, though I can definitely understand why you'd
> think that.
>
> The < > syntax is familiar to anyone who's ever used HTML.  Basic element
> and attribute structures aren't that hard to learn.  Validation, as long as
> you stick to describing element and attribute structures, really isn't that
> hard either.
>
> The more subtle parts of XML are awfully damn hard, certainly - I think
> pretty much everyone is still learning.  But the basic syntax, the material
> you really need to know to apply it to a very large core set of problems,
> isn't very hard.
>
> The standard certainly obfuscates it, but basic XML really isn't that
> complicated.  'XML in a Day' isn't an impossible dream by any means, as
> long as you start with the friendly part, not the complicated bits.  And
> how many people really want to use the complicated bits anyway?
>
> There's a long learning curve ahead of users as far as best practices, but
> I don't think XML itself should be very scary.

I really wish that everybody had this sort of attitude in evangelizing XML, in
fact I share this opinion deeply and would not be using XML in the first place if
I did not feel that XML is "simple enough for neophytes to walk up to and
explore".  But then again, I am in the minority of programmers out there who
think that computer related topics should be understandable by others than just
the gods of computerdom so now I will crawl back into my little shell (-:

Tyler


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