It was a long time coming. I knew XML was going to be big because I'd worked with SGML in years past. XML 1.0 benefitted from the forum of the internet, an open development paradigm, a succinct but highly extensible scope, and a disciplined release. It's clearly here to stay, and I hope the core specification stays as it is.

On the other hand, I'm not so enthusiastic about Microsoft's "XML everywhere" direction. The most expensive part of software is not development, it's maintenance. How many DTD's will Microsoft hold? How many will change? How will they disseminate information on these changes? Perhaps most importantly, how will they welcome the new transparency of their formats? It's fun to plant flowers, but it's a pain to weed gardens.

Besides, XML is perfect for representing information in a single state, but that's not all we want to do with data. If you want to find needles in haystacks, you don't necessarily want the haystacks to exist exclusively as XML.