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Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

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Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#61

Post by cyanydeez »

Lerc wrote: post #51

I am unconvinced. To me it seems like handling symbols that start and end sequences that could contain further start and end symbols is a difficult case. Humans can't do this very well either, we use visual aids such as indentation, synax hilighting or resort to just plain counting of levels. Obviously it's easy to throw parameters and training at the problem, you can easily synthetically generate all the XML trainin…

Basically, the only way you're separting user input from model meta-input is using some kind of character that'll never show up in the output of either users or LLMs.

While technically possible, it'd be like a unicode conspiracy that had to quietly update everywhere without anyone being the wiser.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#63

Post by oytis »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #39

> a contrast between Claude’s modern approach [...] XML, a technology dating back to 1998 Are we really at the point where some people see XML as a spooky old technology? The phrasing dotted around this article makes me feel that way. I find this quite strange.

XML is still around, but I don't think many people would choose it as a serialization format today for something new.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#64

Post by cyanydeez »

apwheele wrote: post #27
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you clarify, do those tags need to be tags which exist and we need to lear about them and how to use them? Or we can put inside them whatever we want and just by virtue of being tags, Claude understands them in a special way?

All the major foundation models will understand them implicitly, so it was popular to use , but you could also use or and the model would still go through the same process.

HTML is a large subsection of their training data, so they're used to seeing a somewhat semantic worldview

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#65

Post by thesz »

scotty79 wrote: post #54
Lerc wrote: post #51

I am unconvinced. To me it seems like handling symbols that start and end sequences that could contain further start and end symbols is a difficult case. Humans can't do this very well either, we use visual aids such as indentation, synax hilighting or resort to just plain counting of levels. Obviously it's easy to throw parameters and training at the problem, you can easily synthetically generate all the XML trainin…

Transformers look like perfect tech for keeping track of how deep and inside of what we are at the moment.

Transformers are able to recognize balanced brackets grammar at 97% success rate: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=kaILSVAspn

This is 3% or infinitely far away from the perfect tech.

The perfect tech is the stack.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#66

Post by icermann »

theowaway213456 wrote: post #46
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #39

> a contrast between Claude’s modern approach [...] XML, a technology dating back to 1998 Are we really at the point where some people see XML as a spooky old technology? The phrasing dotted around this article makes me feel that way. I find this quite strange.

The evidence suggests that XML was never that popular though for the general audience, you have to admit. For Web markup, as an industry we tried XHTML (HTML that was strictly XML) for a while, and that didn't stick, and now we have HTML5 which is much more lenient as it doesn't even require closing tags in some cases. For data exchange, people vastly prefer JSON as an exchange format for its simplicity, or protobuf…

MS Office and Open-/LibreOffice are using zipped xml files (e.g. .docx, .xlsx and .odt). Svg vector graphics is xml, the x in ajax stands for xml (although replaced by json by now). SOAP (probably counts as the predecessor of REST) is xml-based.

XML was definitely popular in the "well used" sense. How popular it was in the "well liked" sense can maybe be up for debate, but it was the best tool for the job at the time for alot of use cases.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#67

Post by lmeyerov »

My intuition is it comes down to error-correcting codes. We're dealing with lossy systems that get off track, so including parity bits helps.

Ex: ... helps keep track. Even better? .... That's ugly xml, but great for LLMs. Likewise, using standard ontologies for identifiers (ex: we'll do OCSF, AT&CK, & CIM for splunk/kusto in louie.ai), even if they're not formally XML.

For all these things... these intuitions need backing by evals in practice, and part of why I begrudgingly flipped from JSON to XML

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#68

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

But should this extend to anything that could end up in Claudes context? Should we be using xml even in skills for instance, or commands, custom subagents etc.

And then do we end up over indexing on Claude and maybe this ends up hurting other models for those using multiple tools.

I just dislike how much of AI is people saying "do this thing for better results" with no definitive proof but alas it comes with the non determinism.

At least this one has the stamp of approval by Claude codes team itself.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#69

Post by vlovich123 »

coldtea wrote: post #44
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #39

> a contrast between Claude’s modern approach [...] XML, a technology dating back to 1998 Are we really at the point where some people see XML as a spooky old technology? The phrasing dotted around this article makes me feel that way. I find this quite strange.

XML has been "spooky old technology" for over a decade now. It's heyday was something like 2002. Nobody dares advertise the XML capabilities of their product (which back then everybody did), nobody considers it either hot new thing (like back then) or mature - just obsolete enterprise shit. It's about as popular now as J2EE, except to people that think "10 years ago" means 1999.

For me, even when it was first released, I considered obsolete enterprise shit. That view has not diminished as the sorry state of performance and security in that space has just reaffirmed that perception.

Re: Why XML tags are so fundamental to Claude

#70

Post by himata4113 »

coldtea wrote: post #44
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #39

> a contrast between Claude’s modern approach [...] XML, a technology dating back to 1998 Are we really at the point where some people see XML as a spooky old technology? The phrasing dotted around this article makes me feel that way. I find this quite strange.

XML has been "spooky old technology" for over a decade now. It's heyday was something like 2002. Nobody dares advertise the XML capabilities of their product (which back then everybody did), nobody considers it either hot new thing (like back then) or mature - just obsolete enterprise shit. It's about as popular now as J2EE, except to people that think "10 years ago" means 1999.

didn't know html was spooky tech, TIL. /s
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