You are a bit outdated, tooling is a bit better nowadays. Java integrates everything you need to parse and generate XML. Most API are XSD driven (either throug

You are a bit outdated, tooling is a bit better nowadays. Java integrates everything you need to parse and generate XML. Most API are XSD driven (either through annotation in the code, or with the mapping code generated from the XSD), so you get plenty of types like data, int, ... You also get streaming parser (pull or push) and DOM. Obviously, that is no longer plain XML, that is XML + XSD + Namespaces. The J2SE (not JEE) also has built-in support to expose and consume webservices, without requiring to worrying about WSDL and the rest. At the end of the day, that does not mean that dealing with XML is a great experience. Most real life XML is awful. And well although the basic tooling is there, that is in the usual java fashion with factories of factory of creator of generator and very little "high level" utility.