Another way to make XML awesome (especially for config files and the like) is to completely avoid CDATA i.e. no <config><key>value</key><key2>value2</key2></config> but rather: <config key="value" key2="value2"/> -- simple constructions can then do with just a root element. Of course this pattern only pays off if you need the XML parser for other parts of the application, too...
Another way to make XML awesome (especially for config files and the like) is to completely avoid CDATA i.e. no <config><key>value</key><key2>value2</key2></config> but rather: <config key="value" key2="value2"/> -- simple constructions can then do with just a root element. Of course this pattern only pays off if you need the XML parser for other parts of the application, too...
Without namespaces it would be just ML, and that already has another meaning.
The "extendable" part is about accepting unknown tags. The namespaces expansion is responsible for destroying this, not for creating it.
I mean I guess one can look at it like that. One could also say that namespaces make it clear what extension it is and resolve name conflicts.