Since someone linked both standards elsewhere in the thread, this is the first valid, self-contained example XML document appearing in the XML spec: <?xml

Since someone linked both standards elsewhere in the thread, this is the first valid, self-contained example XML document appearing in the XML spec: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <!DOCTYPE greeting [ <!ELEMENT greeting (#PCDATA)> ]> <greeting>Hello, world!</greeting> The first example of a complete, self-contained yaml document in the yaml spec looks like this: # Ranking of 1998 home runs --- - Mark McGwire - Sammy Sosa - Ken Griffey # Team ranking --- - Chicago Cubs - St Louis Cardinals I think that is quite representative of the user experience as a whole: Yes, there are a ton of dark corners in Yaml that only a tiny fraction of people truly understand, but the default user experience feels just like writing a slightly more convenient JSON, whereas XML by default is a garbled mess.