The core of the article is at the bottom: > the various XML-based "standards" spawned by enterprise committees are monuments to over-engineering. But the core

The core of the article is at the bottom: > the various XML-based "standards" spawned by enterprise committees are monuments to over-engineering. But the core format (elements, attributes, schemas, namespaces) remains sound. We threw out the mechanism along with its abuses. It's mostly only arguing for using the basic XML in place of the basic JSON. I largely agree to that, although I wouldn't consider the schemas among its core, go read the Schema specifications and tell me when you come out. But I agree that a good part of XML's downfall was due to its enterprise committees: no iteration, and few incentives to make things lean and their specifications simple; a lot of the companies designing them had an interest in making them hard to implement.