cat -v harmful stuff

XML Sucks

The essence of XML is this: the problem it solves is not hard, and it does not solve the problem well.” – Phil Wadler, POPL 2003

Quotes

Most xml i’ve seen makes me think i’m dyslexic. it also looks constipated, and two health problems in one standard is just too much.” – Charles Forsyth on 9fans

Some part of me desperately wants to believe that XML-RPC is some kind of elaborate joke, like a cross between Discordianism and IP Over Avian Carriers.” – Ex-Cyber on #plan9

Any damn fool could produce a better data format than XML” – James Clark 2007-04-06

Alexander Viro on linux-kernel mailing list:

   > > Or even XML. Ouch! No need to throw things at me!
   >
   > It seems they would be thrown! XML in kernel is too much. OpenOffice and

   They won't be thrown.  They will be slowly driven under the nails, so that
   victim could experience the joy equal to that of dealing with XML.

XML is simply lisp done wrong.” – Alan Cox

XML is like violence. Sure, it seems like a quick and easy solution at first, but then it spirals out of control into utter chaos.” – Sarkos in reddit

XML is a classic political compromise: it balances the needs of man and machine by being equally unreadable to both.” – Matthew Might

XML combines the efficiency of text files with the readability of binary files” – unknown

XSL-T

XML Namespaces

See the namespace confusion page in the WHATWG wiki for evidence of how much XML namespaces suck.

Alternatives

See also