RE: [xml-dev] If XML is too hard for a programmer, perhaps he'd b e better off as a crossing guard

> Maybe Jeff meant normalization more than validation?

How 'bout  validated normalized data?

Actually, CDATA and entities had completely escaped my mind,  because I
spend more time developing XML formats for data records: fine-grained,
atomic, local, and datatyped.  Sure, that doesn't rule out the possibility
of CDATA or entity occurrences, but using them would be an exercise in
silliness for the types of documents I've been parsing lately.  

And, to be perfectly honest, I would in almost all cases use a SAX or XPull
parser anyhow.  It just that at the moment I'm working with a non-XML
hierarchical data document which has graphical data suitable for extraction
using simple regex, and that prompted me to play devil's advocate.
 
Nonetheless, regex is perfectly suitable for parsing XML in narrow,
provincial, tightly constrained and content-controlled circumstances. 

Now, I ask you, ... is that too much to expect?    The problem with the
world today is that it's just too darn liberally parameterized.