> I'm
> happy with the notion that XML *is* a *syntax*. I don't think
> it's really a language, and I'm not sure what a metalanguage
> is either.
A language for describing the syntax of another language?
But actually XML is more than a metalanguage for describing other languages;
it's also the class of languages that can be so described.
Perhaps the notion of "metalanguage" or "language in which one can define
markup languages for documents" is over-emphasising the role of the DTD,
when one of the major contributions of XML is to make the DTD optional.
Perhaps: "XML is a set of rules defining how the structure of a document can
be represented by means of character-based markup inserted into the document
text."
Regards,
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
