XML

XML offers some significant enhancements and functionality over what can be achieved with HTML. Among them: o • XML is a language for defining markup languages. It is not restricted in scope to the fixed tags defined in HTML. Document types can be created that are customized to the application, type of data, and user community for which it is intended. • Information content can be richer and easier to use, both because of the richer flexibility of tags and the hypertext linking abilities of XML are greater than those offered in HTML. • Information should be more usable and accessible. Because of the nature of XML, communities will be able to create applications customized to their needs, rather than being restricted to software provided by major vendors as has become the case with HTML. • XML files are valid SGML. They can be used in SGML environments outside of the Web. At the same time XML has removed many of the complexities inherent in SGML, providing a more simple model and thus making it easier to develop XML applications that would be the case for SGML.