>> The down side for me is the bloat it causes.
>
>Bloat? In theory XML seemed kind of lean to me, care to enlighten me a little Butler? :)

Bloat... well you mean I have to actually back up what I say around here? Gee, John is having a baddddddddd effect on this place.

As I said for intrAnet I like it and when the IntErnet gets up to real speed I'll jump all over it. The bloat is caused by the design. The very thing that makes XML so great is the thing that clouds its usefulness on the web. Here's why: For every field I want to send you for every record I have to tell you over and over and over again what that field means. I also have to tell you where that meaning begins and ends. So lets say I had 26 records to send you. Each record had one field. Each field had one Char. SO instead of sending you a b c d e f g ………., over the lighting fast speed of mud web, I have to send you
< Letter >a< /Letter >
< Letter >b< /Letter >
< Letter >c< /Letter >
< Letter >d< /Letter >
< Letter >e< /Letter >
< Letter >f< /Letter >
< Letter >g< /Letter >

I'm sorry but I call that Bloat. Now I could have in this example used L instead of Letter as the tag but you can't do that in the real world. Don't get me wrong, this could revolutionize the web into ONE BIG DATABASE, and everyone here would love that! But I don't think we are ready for that yet.

Tell me I'm wrong, show me the error of my ways.

Jeff