Tagged interchange formats like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_File_Format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_File_Format were IMO much better

Tagged interchange formats like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_File_Format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_File_Format were IMO much better to work with than XML from a programming point of view. If I want something free-form text based, I've been more happy with e.g. YAML based formats.