> People say the text <a/> *is* XML but more precisely it *is*
> a "document"
> that comples with the "a" markup language which in turn
> complies with the rules of XML.
There may be millions of markup languages that allow <a/> as a document, or
there may be none. It doesn't matter: <a/> is a well-formed XML document
regardless. I think this stuff about XML being used to define other markup
languages is a very confusing way of explaining things to newcomers. The
first thing to get across is that <a/> is (a document allowed by the rules
of) XML.
Regards,
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay