I don't see all the "hype" because I'm trying to get my head into what it really is, so I can't judge that.

Here's some important facts (or at least important enough for them to occur to me in the few minutes I was typing this post):

• There is no more HTML. The only standard for web browsing is now XHTML, which is an XML application, not an SGML application (as HTML was).
• XML requires a parser to abort if it's malformed. No more browsers that all error-correct malformed HTML in different ways.
• XML is simpler to parse because there are no optional end tags.
• XML is not a universal "data exchange" panacea. You still have to agree on the semantics of the tags. But at least the syntax is clearly indisputable.
• XML is rich enough that almost anything that wants to be a "text" file with structure can be represented as XML
• XML will never be an input format for naive data entry. The rules for constructing XML data are learnable, but not by the average data entry clerk. {grin}

Hopefully, that's a good start. I think XML is a good thing, but only for what it is designed for.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker