XML Lessons from C

[damn! hit the back button by mistake... 5 paras with links gone]

Summary: In the 80s C was still the "everything's an integer" programming language. Factors like 16 bit architectures & portability led everyone writing "good" code to dispense with int, and use short, long, signed & unsigned, function pointers, and in general strong typing with no hidden agreements between caller and callee.

The XML parallel is that in its early days (right up to now) the addition of elements into XML documents as piggy-back over and above what the receiever expected as mandatory was considered a strength. However, with increasing use of XML Schema, and generated XML documents (and their schemas) from other models, as well as document transformation and translation outside of XML, it seems that more and more strong typing will come to apply in XML as well.

However, if things are done well, as suggested in this article, then the benefits of extensibility can be enjoyed as well as evolution and versioning.