XML overuse? (was Re: Python to XML to Python conversion)

[Harvey Thomas]

François Pinard wrote:
[...snip...]
 
> I do not think so.  SGML already has these virtues, and much 
> more than XML.
> The main goal of XML was to please machines, because full SGML is so
> difficult to parse.  The price to pay to please machines was a loss of
> readability for humans.  XML is so verbose that real information gets
> overwhelmed under tags.  The fish often gets drawn in practice.

[..snip...]

I think you should substitute "software writers" for "machines". A full SGML parser, which must always be validating, is indeed very hard to write (I only know of two that really meet the spec), but an XML parser, particulatly a well-formdness only parser, is much easier to write.

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