For when your data needs to dress formally. 🧑💼
If JSON is casual Friday, XML is all about showing up in a three-piece suit—structured, verbose, and extremely well-mannered.
It may not be the cool kid anymore, but it still runs a lot of serious systems behind the scenes.
What Is XML?
XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It’s a text-based format used to store and transport data. Think of it like HTML’s older cousin—both use tags, but while HTML tells your browser how to display things, extensible markup language focuses on what the data is.
Why Do People Still Use XML?
Despite being wordy (okay, very wordy), it still has its place—especially in industries that need precision and consistency.
Here’s why:
- Self-Descriptive: Every piece of data comes wrapped in tags that clearly define what it is.
Sample Code:
Jane Coder
2025
- Platform-Independent: It's compatible with different systems and languages. It doesn’t care what platform you're using—it just works.
- Supports Nested Data: Need to represent complex relationships between elements? It handles that smoothly with parent/child structures.
- Validatable: With tools like DTD or XSD, you can define strict rules for what your code should look like and make sure your data doesn’t break those rules.
Where You’ll Still Find XML
- APIs: Older (and some enterprise) APIs still use it over JSON.
- RSS Feeds: RSS Feeds blogs, news alerts, and podcast subscriptions and they rely heavily on it.
- Office Documents: Microsoft Word and Excel files are basically zipped XML files.
- Web Services (SOAP): These legacy services rely heavily on XML for structured communication.
XML might feel like overkill for smaller projects, but when structure, validation, and cross-system communication matter—it's still a solid, reliable choice.
Formal, yes. Outdated? Not quite.