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I have tried to assemble some issues that should explain why it was a good idea to make SVG based on XML syntax instead of some binary format. Making SVG an application of XML gives SVG all the benefits that other XML-based vocabularies enjoy. I have also made a similar rationale for CSS . Of course, this rationale is based heavily on a basic understanding of XML, so if you don't know the first thing about it, you can start by reading the World Wide Web consortium homepage for XML first. A general advantage of an XML based vocabulary is that if, for example, a mechanism which operates on XML files is made, then as a consequence, all other standards forming vocabularies in XML automaticallyw become interoperable with this technology.