About XML format

About XML formatExtensible Markup Language (XML) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) are both designed for web documents. Unlike HTML, XML is designed for data. Also unlike HTML, XML supports the use of customized tags for specific data.The rules governing the syntax of XML tags are stricter than those for HTML. A missing tag or incorrectly formatted attribute in an XML document renders the file useless.

I have yet to learn about XML. When I first started web designing, I didn't worry about the HTML DOCTYPEs, but then I decided that it was better to conform to the W3C standard so that my website would be compatible with more browsers and viewable by more people.Right now, I use XHTML 1.1, but I might move to XHTML 2.0 soon. I'm not sure when I'll make the move to use XML.

They say that XML is going to be the next standard for creating web pages. Already, XML is widely adopted, for example in the use of syndicating news, showing news headlines, delivering RSS feeds, and so on.

The fundamental difference between HTML and XML is that XMl contains information about the information. XML contains data that machines can understand. For example if the word "apple" is mentioned in a document. If the document is written in HTML, computer cannot tell if the writer means the fruit or the computer company. XML would contain the information. That is the simple reason why XML is the future of the web, the semantic web. Having document type that is possible for machine to understand will finally result that the whole web could be treated as an organized database, thus making the searching far more easier than what it is now. Also the improved understanding between machines will open up whole new possibilites for the web and make our lives slightly easier.

I read an article saying how XML has failed miserably on the web.

I guess it will be a whie before XML can replace XHTML or HTML.

XML sounds like it's not very reliable...i wouldn't use it.Stick to XHTML & HTML.