Products · Product
XML
Raised as a usability problem by 77 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 67 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2Namespaces make XPath processing awkwardUnreviewed
- 1
- 2Namespaces make XPath processing awkwardUnreviewed
- 3XSD schemas hard to rememberUnreviewed
- 4
Every issue, all time, most people first
Poor documentation makes simple parsing tasks take monthsUnreviewed
20082026- Parser interface is clumsier than needed because it mirrors XML's structure2026-07-06
- Interacting directly with XML markup means dealing with verbosity, namespacing, and normalisation manually2026-03-05
- XML files are hard to read, and Visual Studio won't preserve formatting so users can't tidy them2025-06-27
Namespaces make XPath processing awkwardUnreviewed
20082026- Layering many namespaces makes XML impossible to generate or verify manually2026-03-14
- Namespaces make XPath processing awkward and overly formal2025-08-22
- XML tooling has unhelpful errors and usability bugs around namespaces, making developers burn out2024-05-31
XSD schemas hard to rememberUnreviewed
20082026- Hard to define schemas and decipher cryptic error messages when XML is wrong2026-01-23
- XSD schema syntax is horrible to read and write2023-01-17
- Schema validation tools were awful, so people gave up on DTD and XSD2021-07-19
Mapping XML to objects needs extensive mapping infoUnreviewed
20082026- Parsing XML and mapping it to domain types is painful and awkward2024-09-19
- Can't map XML into objects without extensive mapping info2023-09-21
- XML's DOM doesn't map to program objects, so programming with it is painful2020-09-29
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Parser interface is clumsier than needed because it mirrors XML's structure2026-07-06
- Layering many namespaces makes XML impossible to generate or verify manually2026-03-14
- Interacting directly with XML markup means dealing with verbosity, namespacing, and normalisation manually2026-03-05
- Hard to define schemas and decipher cryptic error messages when XML is wrong2026-01-23
- Attributes, entities and CDATA are error-prone and add footguns outside markup2026-01-23
- Hard to hand-write and hand-read2026-01-05
- Namespaces make XPath processing awkward and overly formal2025-08-22
- XML files are hard to read, and Visual Studio won't preserve formatting so users can't tidy them2025-06-27
- Typing plain text is unintuitive, since text may parse in compatibility mode but is not valid2025-05-25
- Most XML parsers are hard for developers to use2025-03-28
- Too many interrelated XML specifications, hard to master all of them2025-03-28
- Parsing XML and mapping it to domain types is painful and awkward2024-09-19
- Hard to read and write by hand; tags bury structure and make editing tedious2024-09-11
- XML doctypes are impossible to remember and ugly to parse2024-06-22
- XML tooling has unhelpful errors and usability bugs around namespaces, making developers burn out2024-05-31
- Developers struggle with invalid XML and rolling their own parsers2024-03-09
- Understanding XML documents requires many poorly documented standards and verbose namespace references2024-01-23
- XML tags and markup make the actual content tedious to read2023-10-12
- Editing XML is error-prone and schema-directed editors require excessive clicking2023-10-12
- Can't map XML into objects without extensive mapping info2023-09-21
- Hand-editing verbose XML tags for simple repetitive configs is painful2023-09-21
- Querying XML requires XPath, which feels clunky compared to JSON2023-09-21
- Forces users onto niche XML-specific tools instead of standard ones2023-09-20
- Attribute-vs-element choice confuses beginners, and default namespaces break queries unexpectedly2023-08-21
- Author never understands how namespaces apply to attribute names, must Google each time2023-07-17
- Hard to map mixed attributes, repeated elements and text onto a data model2023-02-10
- Took three days to work out how XML namespaces function2023-02-10
- Namespaces are hard to handle in most XML parsers, so the commenter strips them out first2023-02-10
- XSD schema syntax is horrible to read and write2023-01-17
- Very large, complicated XML configs are very hard to follow2023-01-13
- No standard formatter or good validation tool; namespaces cause constant friction2023-01-12
- Tools force users to switch between namespace prefix and full URL forms2023-01-12
- Hand-writing XML is cumbersome and error-prone, with many characters needed per setting2023-01-12
- Namespaced elements need verbose wrapping and namespace registration, or XPath queries silently find nothing2022-11-29
- Errors give no stack trace and are emitted only to stdout2022-11-11
- Unclear whether data belongs in attributes, child elements or CDATA blocks2021-09-15
- So complex it is impossible to use without heavy tooling support2021-09-10
- Repeated element names and angle-bracket noise make XML hard to read2021-08-20
- XML browser programs are unbelievably slow, making it hard to learn XML2021-08-18
- Hard to read and hand-edit; wrong edits corrupt the file2021-07-19
- Developers must manually pass namespace declarations and map prefixes, causing constant friction in queries2021-07-19
- Schemas are so complex that suppliers do the minimum and developers must write per-supplier fixers2021-07-19
- Schema validation tools were awful, so people gave up on DTD and XSD2021-07-19
- Xmlns declarations look like ignorable cruft and are hard to understand2021-06-02
- Unspecified default namespace makes every element hard to interpret2021-04-26
- Java XML parsers didn't fully do what the developer needed, making simple property extraction painful2021-04-03
- Parsers error out on unreachable DTDs, and namespaced XPaths silently match nothing until extra configuration2020-10-01
- XML's DOM doesn't map to program objects, so programming with it is painful2020-09-29
- Namespaced elements can't be written in XPath the way they appear in the document2020-09-29
- XML files are often malformed and need manual fixing; parsing is complex and slow2020-01-05