If you’ve found yourself yearning for a document format that makes it easy and flexible to exchange data across the Web, then you should learn about XML, or Extensible Markup Language. . Software of many varieties are already using XML to optimize data organization and presentation.

It’s the great flexibility of XML that makes it so appealing to web developers. Because of the way the language is structured, it is possible to exchange data in many different forms. Data access within XML is easier, as well, than it is with it’s sister markup language, HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Consider this: XML programming can tailor the look of one web page for either a mobile phone or a classic computer browser. In other words, programmers don’t need to make a “mobile” and “regular” site if they don’t want to. The ease and efficiency of XML should be becoming more clear.

It isn’t necessary to have extensive prior experience with HTML in order to operate well using XML. The two do go hand-in-hand in many respects, since they are both descendents of SGML, another markup language. Markup languages’ purpose is organize, categorize, or otherwise label content, and the markup itself describes the organization in question. Another way of looking at it is that markup contains the content, which is what you are looking at when you see an XML page rendered.

XML was developed when HTML’s great shortcoming became clear. In HTML, users cannot add new markup elements. With a need for greater flexibility, XML evolved to meet the needs of document and data handling in a web environment.

This is just a primer for understanding what XML is, and why it might be useful for you. For those who wish to make the most of web development, it’s a great idea to put learning XML on your list of things to do.