Question: Why is the goal important; what does this mean for developer to provide some context.
After each goal, I find myself asking Why?
XML was created with specific design goals intended to make XML portable and simple to use.

The XML Recommendation delineates the following 10 goals:

1. XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
2. XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
3. XML shall be compatible with SGML.
4. It shall be easy to write programs that process XML documents.
5. The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
6. XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
7. The XML design should be prepared quickly.
8. The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
9. XML documents shall be easy to create.
10. Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.

The next lesson describes approaches to using XML.