RE: [xml-dev] Wikipedia on XML

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> How's this: The Extensible Markup Language (XML) 
> specification defines the syntax rules for a family of markup 
> languages loosely referred to as "XML", as well as a system 
> for declaring the selection and ordering of the markup 
> elements which may appear in a particular markup language 
> which is a member of the family.
> 
> I think that's accurate but it feels kind of long and klunky. 

I think it fails to communicate with the target audience. It's written for
language lawyers and xml-dev members, not for people who look at Wikipedia
to find out what XML is. And again, I think this concept of defining
multiple markup languages is too much in DTD territory, which is an optional
feature only. Introduce the ideas one at a time:

"Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a notation for marking up the structure
of documents. The XML specification defines the syntax rules that the markup
must conform to, and it identifies the components of a document (primarily,
named elements nested hierarchically) that are delineated by the markup. XML
allows (but does not require) a document to reference a Document Type
Definition (DTD) which further constrains the structure of the document, for
example by defining the permitted element names and their nesting: so while
XML is a generic markup notation, it also allows specific markup
vocabularies to be defined for particular applications."

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay