Very good article. For some time I have been trying to look beyond the hype about XML to see where it can be truly useful and where to avoid it. This article helps me to make those decisions. I am truly surprised at how many developers use XML for flat data structures (address lists for example) where a database table or even a delimited text file would be simpler, faster, and would take up less space. Moreover, the data is often simply for display and could be hard coded in HTML without the use of an XML file at all. I think some programmers are too quick to jump on the XML bandwagon without stopping to consider these kinds of issues. It reminds me a little of when JAVA was apparently going to take over the world. Like many technologies, the hype settles down eventually and we use them where appropriate instead of trying to use them everywhere.