Just remember: XML is not a format. It is a format format, akin to a cookie cutter. Cookie cutters usually don't taste very good .

I'd say that the costs of XML languages come in two places: one, lots of people, myself included, find it incredibly difficult to debug, particularly when the data model contains several layers of hierarchy. Two, it is a space hog. In an app I designed, I found that there was a 43x increase in data transmission size over a CSV equivalent file. That killed it right there.

That said, if you've got it to work well, then Mazel Tov! Again, the article was mostly a rant against hype. The kind of hype that gets the management types to insist on requiring XML without a clue as to what they are going to do with it once they've got it.