A Brief History of XML
With the explosion of the Web and the massive amount of HTML development that consequently resulted, people began running into HTML's many shortcomings very quickly. At the same time, SGML proponents, who'd been working in relative obscurity for many years, began looking for a way to use SGML itself on the Web, instead of just one application of it (HTML). They realized that SGML itself was too complex for the task—most people couldn't or wouldn't use it—so they needed an alternative. Again, they were looking for something that blended the best aspects of HTML and SGML.
In mid-1996, Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems approached the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) about forming a committee on using SGML on the Web. The effort ...
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