Editing XML (section)

== History ==
XML is an application [[Profile (engineering)|profile]] of [[SGML]] (ISO 8879).<ref name="ISO-2006">{{cite web|url=https://meta.geo.census.gov/data/existing/decennial/GEO/GSCQB/ReleasedPerlScriptsandSchemas/XSLTSSchemsaModules/schematron/schematron/ISO-Schematron-Specification.pdf|title=ISO/IEC 19757-3|page=vi|publisher=[[ISO]]/[[IEC]]|date=1 June 2006|access-date=January 1, 2025}}</ref>

The versatility of SGML for dynamic information display was understood by early digital media publishers in the late 1980s prior to the rise of the Internet.<ref name="bray 2005"/><ref name="Cobb Group-1988">{{cite book|title=Interactive multimedia|chapter=Publishers, multimedia, and interactivity|publisher=Cobb Group|isbn=1-55615-124-1|year=1988|editor1-first=Sueann|editor1-last=Ambron|editor2-first=Kristina|editor2-last=Hooper|name-list-style=amp|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/interactivemulti0000unse}}</ref> By the mid-1990s some practitioners of SGML had gained experience with the then-new [[World Wide Web]], and believed that SGML offered solutions to some of the problems the Web was likely to face as it grew. [[Dan Connolly (computer scientist)|Dan Connolly]] added SGML to the list of W3C's activities when he joined the staff in 1995; work began in mid-1996 when [[Sun Microsystems]] engineer [[Jon Bosak]] developed a charter and recruited collaborators. Bosak was well-connected in the small community of people who had experience both in SGML and the Web.<ref>{{cite web|title=XML: Ten Year Aniversary |url=http://drmacros-xml-rants.blogspot.com/2006/11/xml-ten-year-aniversary.html|date=November 26, 2006 |first=W. Eliot|last=Kimber|website= Dr. Macro's XML Rants |access-date=16 November 2017}}</ref>

XML was compiled by a [[working group]] of eleven members,<ref>The working group was originally called the "Editorial Review Board". The original members and seven who were added before the first edition was complete, are listed at the end of the first edition of the XML Recommendation {{harv|Bray|Paoli|Sperberg-McQueen|1998}}.</ref> supported by a (roughly) 150-member Interest Group. Technical debate took place on the Interest Group mailing list and issues were resolved by consensus or, when that failed, majority vote of the Working Group. A record of design decisions and their rationales was compiled by [[Michael Sperberg-McQueen]] on December 4, 1997.<ref>{{cite web|editor-first=C. M.|editor-last=Sperberg-McQueen|url=http://www.w3.org/XML/9712-reports.html |date=4 December 1997 |title=Reports From the W3C SGML ERB to the SGML WG And from the W3C XML ERB to the XML SIG|publisher=W3C|access-date=31 July 2009}}</ref> [[James Clark (XML expert)|James Clark]] served as Technical Lead of the Working Group, notably contributing the empty-element <code>&lt;empty&nbsp;/></code> syntax and the name "XML". Other names that had been put forward for consideration included "MAGMA" (Minimal Architecture for Generalized Markup Applications), "SLIM" (Structured Language for Internet Markup) and "MGML" (Minimal Generalized Markup Language).<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Warwick|first1=C.|last2=Pritchard|first2=E.|year=2000|title='Hyped' text markup language. XML and the future of web markup|journal=ASLIB Proceedings|volume=52|number=5|pages=174–184|doi=10.1108/EUM0000000007012}}</ref> The co-editors of the specification were originally [[Tim Bray]] and [[Michael Sperberg-McQueen]]. Halfway through the project, Bray accepted a consulting engagement with [[Netscape]], provoking vociferous protests from Microsoft. Bray was temporarily asked to resign the editorship. This led to intense dispute in the Working Group, eventually solved by the appointment of Microsoft's [[Jean Paoli]] as a third co-editor.<ref>{{cite news|first=P.|last=Manchester|date=15 February 2008|title=Bray recalls team XML|work=The Register|url=https://www.theregister.com/2008/02/15/xml_tenth_anniversary}}</ref>

The XML Working Group communicated primarily through email and weekly teleconferences. The major design decisions were reached in a short burst of intense work between August and November 1996,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://java.sun.com/xml/birth_of_xml.html|title=The Birth of XML|date=12 April 2003|first1=Jon |last1=Bosak |website=Sun Developer Network|access-date=16 November 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120804024400/http://java.sun.com/xml/birth_of_xml.html |archive-date= Aug 4, 2012 }}</ref> when the first Working Draft of an XML specification was published.<ref>{{cite web|editor1-first=T.|editor1-last=Bray|editor2-first=C. M.|editor2-last=Sperberg-McQueen|format=W3C Working Draft|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-961114.html|title=Extensible Markup Language (XML)|publisher=W3C|date=14 November 1996|access-date=31 July 2009}}</ref> Further design work continued through 1997, and XML 1.0 became a [[W3C]] Recommendation on February 10, 1998.

=== Sources ===
XML is a profile of an ISO standard, SGML, and most of XML comes from SGML unchanged. From SGML comes the separation of logical and physical structures (elements and entities), the availability of grammar-based validation (DTDs), the separation of data and metadata (elements and attributes), mixed content, the separation of processing from representation ([[processing instruction]]s), and the default angle-bracket syntax. The SGML declaration was removed; thus, XML has a fixed delimiter set and adopts [[Unicode]] as the document [[Character encoding|character set]].

Other sources of technology for XML were the [[Text Encoding Initiative|TEI]] (Text Encoding Initiative), which defined a profile of SGML for use as a "transfer syntax" and [[HTML]]. The ERCS (Extended Reference Concrete Syntax) project of the SPREAD (Standardization Project Regarding East Asian Documents) project of the ISO-related China/Japan/Korea Document Processing expert group was the basis of XML 1.0's naming rules; SPREAD also introduced hexadecimal numeric character references and the concept of references to make available all Unicode characters. To support ERCS, XML and HTML better, the SGML standard IS 8879 was revised in 1996 and 1998 with WebSGML Adaptations.

Ideas that developed during discussion that are novel in XML included the algorithm for encoding detection and the encoding header, the processing instruction target, the xml:space attribute, and the new close delimiter for empty-element tags. The notion of well-formedness as opposed to validity (which enables parsing without a schema) was first formalized in XML, although it had been implemented successfully in the Electronic Book Technology "Dynatext" software;<ref>{{cite conference|first=Jon|last=Bosak|authorlink=Jon Bosak|url=http://2006.xmlconference.org/proceedings/162/presentation.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711133314/http://2006.xmlconference.org/proceedings/162/presentation.html|archive-date=2007-07-11|title=Closing Keynote |conference=XML 2006 |date=12 July 2006|access-date=31 July 2009}}</ref> the software from the University of Waterloo New Oxford English Dictionary Project; the RISP LISP SGML text processor at Uniscope, Tokyo; the US Army Missile Command IADS hypertext system; Mentor Graphics Context; Interleaf and Xerox Publishing System.