[lazylland]

I recall having an easy time de/serializing XML in C# ... you don't HAVE to get into the syntax business if you don't want to.

And I think the Java also has something analogous in the JAXB library

[natural219]

If you work with any data that's remotely complicated (i.e. practically any relational data), then you get into some pretty hefty messes with C#'s and JAXB's serializers. Unless you know XML schemas thoroughly, trying to map pointers in serialized XML is a mess.