Initially conceived as a solution to publish scientific documents in electronic midia, the HTML language soon gained popularity and became standart for the Internet. Several kinds of applications as browsers, editors, e-mail programs, databases, etc, have nowadays made possible the intensive use of HTML. Along the years, resources have been added to HTML so that it can support users' expectations and systems' prerrogatives, making it more and more complex. Estimates say that the HTML version 4.0 has about one hundred different tags, not considering those which are specific to each browser. It's common find HTML pages that have more tags than content. A possible solution to new demands in this area is the use of XML-Extended Markup Language, that can introduce new possibilities and provide better integration between data and users. This article is an introductory approach to the XML language, to its use on the Internet and to some complementary concepts necessary to understand the matter. It also presents advantages of XML use as opposed to HTML, demonstrating the matter as a fertile field to discussions, propositions and studies to Science Information professionals.
XML; HTML; markup languages; Internet; Intranet
