> With XML, it failed because something like JSON was much simpler. No. XML was introduced as a simplified SGML subset/profile to become the base for new marku

> With XML, it failed because something like JSON was much simpler. No. XML was introduced as a simplified SGML subset/profile to become the base for new markup vocabularies on the web; both SVG and MathML were specified using XML (and later integrated into HTML 5). The intent was also to replace HTML by XHTML. The idea to introduce service payloads as custom, non-UI XML and then transform those payloads into XHTML was induced by XML, but distinct from it. However, W3C went crazy with SOAP and XML (and RDF), attempting to establish entirely new and unproven paradigms such as XForms with XHTML2 rather than merely simplifying syntax, which was bound to fail, and laid ground for browser vendors to evolve HTML outside W3C. Then XML heads somehow felt insulted, refused to change course or learn new things. Most even didn't realize XML is just an SGML subset, and that everything that was possible using XML is by definition also possible using SGML (plus handling HTML and markdown and a couple other things making SGML more complex compared to XML). To this day, we're hearing XML heads dogmatically advertising their overly strict and verbose red-headed stepchild of a markup language, and wondering why nobody wanted to bow to XML. The article is about this kind of people who want to use their tool under all circumstances, project requirements be damned.