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> > I have a hard time communicating with the hard-core text backers who
> > appear to see any transformation of XML (other than gzip, which
> > apparently is blessed by virtue of predating XML itself) as inherently
> > evil.
>
> It's neither about text or evil. it's about the cost of being
> interoperable. Text, especially highly specific text such as XML, is
> cheaper in my experience to hook systems together. YMMV on this, but
> mine rarely has.
People seem eager to forget how the world was before XML 1.0. Too-clever people can argue all day that "XML 1.0 is qualitatively not much better than CSV". But this misses the point. XML 1.0 has been able to achieve a degree of ubiquity and platform support that makes it "the obvious choice" for people who previously had to choose between various CSV, ASN.1, etc. The impact of that contribution is hard to overestimate. Why people are so hasty to go back to a world of multiple, incompatible encoding techniques is beyond me. For God's sake lets be happy that we have XML 1.0 and progress to the new millennium where we get to argue about incompatible schemas instead.
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