Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0

All RSS feeds must conform to XML v1 standards so lets take a quick look at XML Basics.

Extensible Mark-up Language or XML is a specification developed by the W3C. XML is a pared-down version of SGML or Standard Generalised Mark-Up Language, designed especially for Web documents. XML uses tags that describe the contents of the field. It is very similar to html but unlike html it allows designers to create their own customised tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations.

The design goals for XML were:

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

more on XML Specifications