XMLs great promise was that it was human readable. Lo and behold, it is more readable by non-bit-addled humans than whatever binary format is used in COBRA RPC.

XMLs great promise was that it was human readable. Lo and behold, it is more readable by non-bit-addled humans than whatever binary format is used in COBRA RPC. But no, XML wasn't meant for machines... its just that people today programatically generate and consume XML far more often than they do it by hand.