• From: Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@r...>
• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 00:24:01 -0400

> A lot didn't.  At no point did I ever expect XML to replace HTML, and
> wen I joined W3C years later, I was surprised to see that management
> seemed to view XML as basically a failed attempt to replace HTML.

I think in hindsight there was an awful lot of hubris and NIH syndrome mixed in with the good intentions of many W3C standards (maybe standard in general): so many people didn't *want* to get it.
Then of course, there's the subjective weighting... for many people, there was no *apparent* ROI in a cutover. The big lesson is that 'better' isn't necessarily 'good enough'...

• References:
  • [October, 2006] Tim Berners-Lee: the attempt to get the world toswitch to XML ... didn't work
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • Re: [October, 2006] Tim Berners-Lee: the attempt to getthe world to switch to XML ... didn't work
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Re: [October, 2006] Tim Berners-Lee: the attempt to getthe world to switch to XML ... didn't work
    • From: Liam R E Quin <liam@w...>