Why XML ?

I do C/C++ for over 5 years now and I started Win32 / MFC Programming about 1 year ago. I am not very brillant in it, but I increase my knowledge every day.
Since .NET everyone is talking about XML, about exchanging data with different devices using the XML interface. Well... for me this sounds strange as I don't see an "interface" in XML, but somelanguage that is very close to HTML.
OK, some of you might already have started laughing at me, but others might really have the same question as I do: What can you do with this XML when you write Win32 or MFC applications in Visual C++ ? Does it have to do something with saving settings ? Couldn't you always save settings in a "whatever.bla" file ? What's the point ? Can you show me a dummy example ?

Thanks a lot

Basically I use it as a unified file format. This way anybody with an XML parser, which most webbrowsers contain can view the and modify data, and verify the settings files with a DTD. It creates an openness to your data which allows for backwards compatiblity. At least that is what I use it for which works quite nice when reading settings out of a file across different platforms. Plus it is much easier to understand when looking at the raw file.

Anish Mistry
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