As XML reaches a wider audience, similar concerns about the complexity of the specifications are appearing in a broad group of forums - it's not just XML-Dev anymore.

The past month of XML-Dev postings has included a fairly high level of discussion about the nature and development of XML, not all of it friendly.

A similar thread on the comp.text.xml newgroup began when Todd Boyle posted a vote of no confidence and bronx cheer for the W3C's draft "XML Schema: Structures".

While some readers objected to the general nature of the complaint, or suggested that such complaints about a draft document were unwarranted, others agreed that there was room for improvement, and suggested that readability be given more importance.

One participant found it very unfortunate that no attempt was made to create a layered specification in which one could have a compliant system without having to include the kitchen sync.

Meanwhile, on XML-L, Trevor.ioz wondered In reading available source code and looking at the specs I wonder why Parsing and DOM are so complex?