GAO urges government to adopt XML programming language

The General Accounting Office on Friday recommended that the director of the Office of Management and Budget, in concert with the Federal CIO Council and National Institute for Standards and Technology, take steps to expedite the federal government's adoption of Extensible Markup Language (XML).

XML is a flexible, nonproprietary set of standards designed to facilitate the exchange of information between disparate computer systems.

Requested by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the report, "Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language," (GAO-02-327) assessed the overall development of XML standards to determine if they are ready for government-wide use.

The report also pinpointed challenges faced by the federal government in optimizing XML to promote information sharing and system interoperability. The report calls for private-sector input on the implementation and development of a plan for expanding the CIO Council's XML efforts into a government-wide resource.