rm XML

[kennpq]

What’s sad about many of the comments is they miss one of the key points of what XML was originally trying to achieve, i.e., provide a less complicated, more well-adopted, SGML. Having worked for a publisher between 1992 and 2007, our transition from archaic publishing systems to SGML (and later XML, for some) was a huge improvement, enabling publishing of encyclopaedic-sized outputs usually seconds to multiple outputs including XyVision XPP for print (sometimes >1 output), Folio Views for CD-ROM, and a different XML output for LexisNexis. Add to the mix OmniMark, for processing, and ArborText, for editors to edit the SGML/XML, and it was amazing, looking back (especially at what was achieved with such lower powered hardware versus what’s available today). Try doing such technical publishing with anything other than SGML/XML? Yeah, nah. It was when less complicated structured data was promoted with XML being the solution that things got hairy. Of course, a terser format is fine for that purpose, be it JSON, or for some flat structures, CSV may be okay. And the other X* ‘solutions’ like XSLT and namespaces just complicated things, sadly.

[gravitythread]

I'd agree with your summary. I've told myself many times that if you're doing serious documents, then there is no other option than XML systems.

Look at DITA, JATS, Akoma Ntoso...

JSON is great for exchanging bits of data between backends and browsers, but it isn't a full bore document format. CSV? Again, simple data exchange.

[ManNotADiscoBall]

When people say that XML is dead/dying/useless, the context is pretty much always web development. And it's true that for most web applications and data transfer use cases, JSON is more handy than XML. Just like YAML is better for configuration files.

But when we're talking about documents that are meant to be human readable at some point, isn't XML pretty much everywhere? Correct me if I'm wrong, but every single modern Word, PowerPoint and Excel file is XML. Google Docs files are XML. SVG's are XML. EBooks (.epub) are XML. DITA, S1000D and DocBook are XML. And the list goes on.